MI-24 - A Russian Aviation Icon

#1

[font=Arial]So, it’s time again for a new helicopter! :slight_smile:

       I picked the MI-24 which is a sort of russian aviation icon to me. It's very unique design and the overall appearance always attracted me so it was clear, I just have to do one by myself.[/font]  
     
       I started a while ago and occasionally worked on it. Jobs, moving back to LA and other things kept me from working on it more so far, but it's going to be done at one point.  
     
       Also, I'm going for an old, used version with a lot of weathering on it. Just appears to be more interesting than a brand new one with a clean reflective paint job. I love the sloppy sprayed camouflage, the rust stains and all the other dirt splotches coming from somewhere. A more cleaner version will be done later.  
     
       So hopefully it's going to look like this one day:  
 
       [[img]http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_Photo0001_v001.jpg[/img]](http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_Photo0001_v001.jpg)
      Click on Image for full res.
      
      Wikipedia:[i] 
 "The Mil Mi-24 (Russian: Миль Ми-24, NATO reporting name: Hind) is a large helicopter gunship and attack helicopter with and low-capacity troop transport with room for 8 passengers. It is produced by Mil Moscow Helicopter Plant and operated since 1972 by the Soviet Air Force, its successors, and by over thirty other nations."[/i]...
      [i]..."U.S. Army operates a number of Fort Bliss, Texas based Mi-24s at Louisiana's Fort Polk for adversary training."
     
     [/i]
     I shot a lot of texture material of the real bird with my 5D on a cold, perfectly overcasted winter day near Berlin/Germany last year. I took 9 brackets per texture and tone-mapped them to get a good base material which has almost no lighting left in it. The textures will stay at 16bit. A friend, [Michael Grobe](http://www.grobe-bilder.de/), documented the 5 hours of freezing with his camera and soon, he is going to have a small documentary ready and explaining some technical aspects of the texture shoot. It's basically a short making of. The link to it will be posted here :)
    
     So here's the current state of it. While most of the people start with the fuselage, I started with whatever I was in the mood of. All the parts will get assembled later, like they get assembled in the real factory too. I'm trying to build the Mi-24 out of the panels it is built of in reality for getting all the nice highlights and an imperfect surface appearance. This will help to break the cg perfectness a bit more.
     
     The left wing where I put the most work into so far. Texturing is not final, many seams need to be fixed, more balancing is required and for now I used diffuse for reflection and bump (which will change obviously). Once all maps are done, I can start shading it properly.
 
 The current state of the left wing.
    
    [[img]http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_Wing_v0074-ClayShaded_v001.jpg[/img]](http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_Wing_v0074-ClayShaded_v001.jpg)
    Click on image for full res.
  
  
   The canopy with it's weird a-symmetrical forms.
   
   [[img]http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_Cockpit_v0104_clay_view01.jpg[/img]](http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_Cockpit_v0104_clay_view01.jpg)
   Click on image for full res.
   
  
  Some of the cockpit instruments.
  
  [[img]http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_Instruments_v0104_clay_view01.jpg[/img]](http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_Instruments_v0104_clay_view01.jpg)
  Click on image for full res.
  
  
 The tail rotor is ready for unwrapping.
 
 [[img]http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_TailRotor_v0022_clay_view01.jpg[/img]](http://www.cantarel.de/external/WIP/MI-24/Mi-24_TailRotor_v0022_clay_view01.jpg)
 Click on image for full res.
 
 So, not really much of a helicopter yet but I guess that's why it's called work in progress :)

Thanks for watching, updates will follow soon!

Further steps are also going to be posted on my little blog as well: [My Blog](http://www.cantarel.de/blog.html)

Cheers
Andre
#2

:bounce: So far it looks awesome.

#3

wow… this is going to be good…

love what u got so far

#4

amazing details
what are you using for modeling?

are u texturing the hi poly?

#5

Maniac.

Keep 'em coming.

#6

It’s funny that so many persons love the Mi 24:) I fell in love with that chopper by playing Metal Gear Solid on Playstation:)
Andre, Im sure you will do a fantastic job on this piece as you did with the pave hawk.
Just one question, do you render in MR or Vray? Right now it looks like a simple HDRi setup?
However I think the shading is already pretty convincing, simply due to the fact that the metal is rather diffuse than shiny reflective, which is typical for these machines. But Im curious what you will improve:)

#7

Gorgeous work already! I’m sure that this will be epic! I’d really like to learn more about your workflow. Is the detail sculpted? Cheers!

#8

@TRESDberserk: Thanks :slight_smile:

@xLonewolfx: Thanks too! I’m modeling everything in 3ds max. Most of the parts are textured highpoly.

@scrimski: Ha yeah :slight_smile:

@Destrega: I think it’s just the overall unique insect like look of it which made it sort of famous. Atm it’s just a simple hdri + keylight setup for the test renders. And yes, the overall surface is more dull due to it’s age. Nut there are also some more reflective maetrials remaining like the rocket pods for example. Also The bump really needs to be done, all those darker rust stains go inside bump wise etc. Some work left to do there :slight_smile:

@eRKK: Thanks :slight_smile: All is simply hand modeled in max, no magic there at all :stuck_out_tongue:

Thanks for the replys!
Hope to jump on texturing the tail rotor and then finally start modeling the fuselage.

Cheers
Andre

#9

Wow everything is super detailed and looking fantastic. Can’t wait to see more! :thumbsup:

#10

This really needs to be in its own “master class” section and not wip! Amazing detail. It looks like reference is everything, and I look forward to your texture how-to. I set out to build a D-5 Dragonfly some time ago and while I could find some decent pics on the net, without a real one to photograph it’s damn near impossible to fill in the details on something as mechanically complicated as a heicopter.

My only comment, and this applies to about 95% of all cg aircraft models I’ve ever seen, is that the edge profile lines are always too straight. Not sure if you’re planning on addressing that, but on old (and sometimes even new) aircraft, the fins and pylons and gear doors and whatnot all tend to get a little “wonky” over the decades. I think it’s one of those subliminal things you see when you put your cg model next to a photo, but you can’t quite put your finger on. There’s just a level of imperfection in the real thing that’s hard to duplicate easily in a model.

But aside from that, this is a magnificent model. I would never allow a model with this much mesh detail to be used for anything, but as an exercise in detail and accuracy, it’s phenomenal.

#11

@RTjunior: Thanks for the kind words :slight_smile:

@Artbot: Thanks too! And yes, the right base material in reference and texture is always an enourmous plus. Is your D-5 online somewhere? Would love to check it out. You;re absolutely right regarding the straight CG lines. All the breaking up of those will follow here too once the overall model is done. The real bird has some almost too extreme badly treated metal panels. I will post photos of the bumpiest parts later, it’s really surprising how some of the parts look like after 20 years of being in service. “Imperfection” is really one of the key words when trying to achieve photorealism.

#12

Hi Andrè
Another masterpiece! Looking fabulous!
Can’t wait to see the final product. :bowdown:

Mirko

#13

The begining is just fantastic, can’t wait to see more.

#14

This is awesome. Can´t wait to see more. I wanted to build one of those myself but never found the time.

I have tons of reference photos and a cool walkthrough video. If you are interested, send me a PM. I´ve actually been in one of these and took lots of photos in Kiev…

#15

Looks great so far!
How many hours have you spent with that piece already?
Are you using any texture painting application or are you doing everything in photoshop?

Looking forward to the texturing making of too.

#16

This is fantastic! Wonderful detail and i’m happy to hear you did it all in Max! I would love to watch how some of this was made, do you have any plans for a “how to” in the future?

#17

Superb. I hadn’t seen your work before; have been browsing your CGportfolio and I must confess that I’m amazed.

As a side note: everybody knows that when something is heated, it expands. Now if you think of it, when you weld a sheet of metal to a frame, only the areas in contact with the frame get heated, so only those parts expand. That creates some bumps on the metal that remain there when the metal is cold again.

http://www.ecsone.com/cart/cw2/Assets/product_full/crane%20036.jpg

#18

@Mirk: Thanks, haha can’t wait to see the final too :slight_smile:

@StephanRODRIGUEZ: Thanks too! Hope to get the tail rotor out of the ay quick.

@Xenon: Hey thanks :slight_smile: Checked out your portfolio, great stuff! Loving the P-51 with all it’s details! Thanks for the offer - stuff from inside the cockpit area is always needed! For the outside surfaces, I shot already 32GB of photos :stuck_out_tongue: But also good Photos from top and bottom view are always useful.

@delvi: Thanks! Hmm tricky to say, I forgot to use a timer which I actually wanted to do. I worked on it occasionally, 1 hour here, 6 hours there… hard to tell. So far everything is done in Photoshop but for later, especially removing texture seams, I want to check out Mari.

@Sfrenjon: Hehe thx, yeah good old max modeling tools, still happy with them. I’m sure there will be a how-to for certain areas once it is done.

@mujambee: Thanks! Yes this aspect is very important too. It creates a very often seen effect and won;t be missed here :slight_smile: Same for pieces which can be opened by mechanics. After 20 years, those covers/panels were opened so many times, they don;t close at a 100% anymore. Gives nice breakups in the reflections from panel to panel.

Cheers
Andre

#19

Hey André,

great start! i’m very happy to watch your next epic wip thread and i’m sure it’s going to be even more outstanding than the last one (which is kind of hard…hehe).

Nothing to criticize so far… i’m looking forward to see the progress and im also very curious about everything concerning the texture shooting. I shot so much hdri texture material for my c-47 and finally didn’t went through the process of tonemapping… i ended up mostly using ldr material and also do too much of painting. Next time i will focus on relying to photo based texturing where ever it is possible in any way. So therefore, i’m quite interested in what you are shoing to us!!

grüßle aus heidelberg! :beer:

#20

Thanks Andre.

I´ve sent you an email with all the material that I have. I hope this is helpful to you.

Can´t wait to see this beast finished!

Simon