Game Art Challenge #10: Mini Tank

#82

Id say its pretty much finished now. Ive rigged the pilot and added the rest of the maps. The bump and specular maps are just a lazy re-jigging of the layers for the colour map. No specifically painted areas. I might re-paint them if i think they are lacking. Im not sure if they are really neccesary - it looked so nice with the baked radiosity and the metal texture and too much going on might ruin it. The spec maps definately help to make it look more metallic though.

Renders are done using 1 directional light with shadows and 1 omni backlight.
Maps are as follows:
Main body = 1x 1024 col map / 1x 1024 bump map / 1x 512 spec map
Pilot & tracks = 1x 512 col map / 1x 512 bump map / 1x 256 spec map

If ive used too many maps, then let me know. It seems a bit much for the average engine…

And now for question answering time!

Serul - I removed the basket and replaced it with an air vent for the turret. The basket woulve been the only alpha mapped thing on my model, and it didnt seem worth dedicating a whole map to such a small space. It woulda taken too many polys to model and woulda been tricky to make airtight.

Devilhacker - Cheers for the comments. I kinda like the cannon grooves looking that obvious, though you will hardly see them once the lighting is in there.

Konstruct - I frickin love that guys site - very inspiring. As for the camo designs? Hmm… I considered it, but given the city based operation, bluish grey works well - most tanks are simply a plain colour - few are camoflaged. Besides, it woulda been hella tough to get the UVs lined up on an all-over camo pattern :smiley:

Keeganb - I know a tank is hardly original, given the scope of the competition, but i just really wanted to make a feasible-looking small tank. I was gonna do a more outlandish, junky entry after this one, but im shagged out - i wanna get it finished and get back to slacking! Hope the specular and bump on the above pic reduce the concreteness! Also, if you read my earlier posts, you will know that i made the tracks look like that because they have been textured so that each poly represents a section of the track. Ive got it aligned to a path and i can animate it to turn like real tank treads - no cheapo cycling textures here. It looks impressive when theyre turning. Id post a video showing it, but my webspace is getting low.

Unless theres any major issues, im gonna get the final pics put together, put it on my site, and get it out the way :thumbsup:

#83

Truly inspiring work Andy. You seem to get better with each and every post. I really feel like entering now.

#84

WOW… :eek:

IMO, it looks a lot better!
I really like the way that the driver looks!
If you do end up changing the tanks texture some more that’s fine but the driver is prefect!

Also it sound like your wrapping up this project soon… :sad:
Any idea on what’s next?

#85

Thanks for the fast replies folks.

Im glad you like the driver - i was starting to think he looked too dark, too blocky and hard to make out due to his green coat and arms.
As for whats next? After a bit of a break, ill probably get some animation practice in - i make all these purdy models, and do nothing with them. Id like to take each low poly project ive done and make a lil 10 second anim so i can present them on my showreel in a more intresting way. As for my next modeling project, i might go back to some high-poly stuff. Ive been doing nowt but games stuff for nearly a year. Need to balance my website out - the high poly gallery looks a bit lame in comparison with my low poly gallery.

#86

Brilliant :applause:

The tank was looking a little concrete but the spec map has really helped. Great use of the bump map too.

I kinda feel obsolete… :sad:

#87

The spec map does wonders for your metal-ness.

Looks really good, looks finished, it’s modelled in such a way that I can’t see Normal maps really affecting it much (versus plain old bumps, which I’m assuming you used, based on your explanation of the colorhack).

Any chance we can get a look at the final textures?

#88

Yeah - i used bump maps - ive no idea how to make normal maps. Its something id like to look into sometime.
Ill post the maps when i post my final images soon.
Ive just gotta work on the beauty render and the screencaps / renders.

#89

Looks awesome! :smiley:

Only thing I would note is that metal is usally painted and therefore doesn’t end up being that shiny like you have now. And maybe the bump is set maybe a bit too high. But I guess these comments can considered personal preference. :slight_smile:

Anyway… :thumbsup: :thumbsup: :thumbsup:

#90

awesome work, getting better & better. Just one minor critics, the shell of the tank is a bit too shiny for something military.

#91

Good point about the shiny hull - ill drop the specular a bit.

#92

freaking cool, def. metal sluq esque to a slight dergree, but with a well developed sense of realism.

i think eveything looks really well done, except for the pilot-

despite what everyone else has been saying i think you should give him a lil more lovin.
it might be just the lighting in the last shots of him, but with the bump map and the specular, he gets kinda muddy.

before you added thses effects there was a defenite contrast between the driver and vehicle that looked really good, but as you have it now, they kind of become one and the same,- maybe try some diff color schemes for the pilot- maybe something more warm? i dunno.

also i HIGHLY recomend using the pilot as your fist normal map exercise. not that im a big expert on the topic:D but you figure he`s really simple in the low poly, and he would be great for a crash course in learning the technology. (from what im reading it really isnt that complex).

keep goin!

#93

Yeah, I think the spec is a bit much…too shiny. Killer work Andy.

#94

My god, that is so good.

Im really a fan of your work, it’s really inspirational.

I like the cartoon scale of it. With the ultra real texturing it looks really cool :slight_smile:

Is that really under the limit? wow

This is one of my favourites so far

#95

And im done!
Here are the final images ill be submitting:

The concept image is a little crappy, but im not putting it on my site. Its only to fulfil the posting rules for submissions.
All i gotta do now is get the beauty render done. A lunchbreak or 2 should see to that. Once its finished, i can put me feet up and wait for the submission thread to open up! If i can make space on my web account, ill try and do a lil animation illustrating the moving tracks.
The whole thing is 4045 triangles. Im well under budget, and i woulda liked to add more detail to the tracks and the pilot, but ehh - im too idle to go back and fix em…

Ill post the beauty render as soon as i get it done. Im tempted to show the cannon firing, but i also want to show the speed of it. A nice dynamic shot with motion blur on the ground and tracks, with loads of dust being kicked up should look better than cheesy shots of all the guns being fired simoultaneously.

#96

gotta say this is one sexy model, ESPECIALLY the texture, how much of that is hand painted? it looks like a lot of the the dents and scratches are from scratch. :drool: - everything looks awesome, i cant belive your already done… wish i had that much free time :stuck_out_tongue:

:applause: :applause: :applause:

#97

sorry my english. Very well, i think the winner is here. I wish i could make textures good as yours.

#98

Wow, truly awesome work, especially on the texture. As Konstruct has asked, its is all hand painted, if so, its trully awesome. I would love to get some pointers from you when I started my texture work (soemwhere around next week).

#99

I see that You finished. Hat from the head. Like always A!W!E!S!O!M!E! You rock man!!

Modelling good like always, texture-> no comment :applause: . I look on that contest and here is a few models very awesome, I’m very interested how it will be look on the dead line. Whatever You are Masta :thumbsup:

#100

Yeah this little bugger turned out sweet. You should try and make some versions that stood in different climate types. like muddy rain or snow :slight_smile:

Its a perfect metalslug army tank.

#101

And the beauty render!

I know, i know - its in the desert when i said it would patrol cities. I just couldnt be arsed modeling an environment! Plus, this image gives it a good post apocalyptic feel - especially the sky. The dust being kicked up was done in max, with a lil bit of photoshopping to add the specks of dirt at the front of the treads. Then a fair bit of photoshop trickery was applied to change the levels and add a soft look to it. Theres also a slight vibration blur effect on the areas like the machine gun. Note the motion blur on the tracks - theyre animated! its gonna be pretty easy to make a lil animation of it now - all i gotta do is find a few hours to do it and make some more webspace.
As for the texturing questions, it is a mixture of hand drawn and photoref. A metal door texture was carefully deformed and skewed to fit the UVs to give the metal panels their worn look. Once this base layer was applied, i added a few faint layers of photoreffed rust and decay, painted the details of the tank, then finished it off with some hand drawn scratches around the worn areas.
Good idea about the different terrain variations, lando - i dbout Ill really want to do it though. I just wanna get it out the way cos im bored now :scream:

Anyway, thats me done for this comp - i bid you adieu, and good luck!