Weapon WIP: Colt 45 semi-automatic pistol

[Nikko]

Here is a shot of all the pieces, loosely arranged...
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/ColtDisassembled1.jpg

[Dave Black]

I'd say you are doing very well so far. I have an entire set of the original blueprints if you need 'em.

You can download the whole set here:

http://www.3dzealot.com/DownLoads/M1911_Drawings.zip

I'm going to assume that you are using Max 5.1:

This is a lighting tip I give for making basic models look their best...

Create a skylight. Set the color to a slight blue(up a bit from the default), and change it's multiplier to .6

Now create a targeted spot. Set it up so that it is hitting the model at around 45degrees, and off center a bit. Turn on shadows, and set the shadow type to "Area". Make the light color a slight yellow.

Open the Advanced lighting dialog(render menu). Change these settings from the defaults:

Rays/Sample: 45
Filter size: 6

Make a new default material and set it's color to grey. Appy it to your model.

In the render dialog, set your AA to "catmull-rom".

Render it out.

Believe me, a simple but quality lighting setup will help you better visualize problem areas, as well as spur you on, as it makes the model look really great.

Just some ideas and hopefully helpfull tips. Overall, that's a nice project. I'd like to see the lighting not looking so flat, and the textures do need some work, but fixing them is beyond the scope of this post.

Best of luck to you!

-3DZ

:D

[Nikko]

THANK YOU 3DZealot! That lighting setup was outstanding! I did a little more tweaking with the settings you suggested and found a few more areas of the gun that made me cringe...so I pushed and pulled a few more verts and polygons until I was a little happier. The material and light settings are far from finished. Yes, the textures still need a LOT of work...

I wish I would've had the blueprints before I started. Would've saved me a bit of time drawing the thing in the first place. Thank you very much for those as well!

http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45FirstRender2.jpg

[Dave Black]

That is really looking great. I noticed you mentioned that this is for an exploded-view animation. If you've ever field-stripped one of those babies, you will want to show the barrel bushing flying across the room and getting lost. It could be the cinematic climax!

Hehe...always hated those damn bushings...hehe.

Anyway, in keeping with the overall feel you've got going, I'd lose the texture on the grips. It almost looks like a procedural wood map. I'd go with a simple photo wood map with just some basic UVW mapping. Just add a "UVWMap" modifier, and slap that texture on 'em. Of course, I don't want to insult you as I know you mentioned the textures are not done yet...

Also, let me offer one last tip. This is one that can be tricky, but the results are amazing. Since almost nothing in reality is really hard-edged, mechanical CG objects tend to look too perfect. This is a problem regarding the surface of the model not reacting well to lighting. What I would advise, is to slightly(almost imperceptively) chamfer all your edges. These little chamfers will catch the specular component of your light, and really set your model off. It can be tricky depending on how you model these objects. If you use booleans, and regular mesh operations(i.e., non-sub-d modeling), these chamfers can cause shading artifacts due to the use of N-gons and many, many triangles. Well, you get the idea. I don't want to ramble on too much. I have quite a massive thread on Sub-D modeling in the max sub-forum if you ever feel like reading for a day...hehe. We are working on a Manual/FAQ for this stuff, so look for that soon.

Again, the model is looking awsome. I think it's going to turn out to be a great project. Best of luck, bro, and sorry for such a long post.

-3DZ

:D

[Nikko]

Here's a little update...

I'm still not happy with the handgrips, but have done a lot of minor tweaking to the modeling.

Thank you 3DZealot for the great advice, and I'm STILL not done with the textures...
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45FirstRender03.jpg

[Nikko]

I finally got this thing finished. Here are some of the individual frames from the animation. I was restricted to using normal lights, because anything using Max 5's advanced lighting took too long, and as it is, 900 frames rendered out took 14 hours.

Thank you 3DZealot for the advice. I ended up doing a LOT more beveling and tweaking before I finished this.

Any comments, criticism, would be welcomed!

http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45Final01.jpg
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45Final02.jpg
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45Final03.jpg
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45Final04.jpg

Dan Huff
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/

[Nikko]

Here's the last of them...
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45Final05.jpg
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45Final06.jpg http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45Final07.jpg
http://home.neo.rr.com/nikko/images/Colt45Final08.jpg

[AlecMoody]

looking pretty good. The cut away section by the trigger (the little crescent shaped bit that was added to the A1) doesn't look quite right.

[blinxpro]

Looks good. Just one suggestion. In my opinion the "blueing" has too much reflection. I've owned alot of guns and even the brand new ones with "blueing" don't reflect that much. Shiny yes. Reflective no. I'm just basing my opinion on what I've seen.

This one is brand spankin new.

http://www.ssc-ergolding.de/Colt%201911gr%DF.gif

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