Painting My Tank

[Oliver Thornton]

Hi guys,

Just thought I'd post some pics of my tank as I repaint it with 3DC. Roughing this monster up has really been a lot more fun than I expected. Pic linked below.

Cheers,

-Oliver

[philnolan3d]

Very nice, that does look like fun. How did you keep the sharp edges, does the original model have bevels? I noticed you have cracks modeled in-between the hull plates. I do this myself, but after playing with 3DC for a while it occurred to me that it could be done very easily here with a normal map, or even by exporting a new mesh.

[StereoMike]

I guess you imported it without smoothing.

I had problems when doing this:

Areas, that are round (but when viewed without smooth shading have in fact facets due to poly count) will generate these facets on the normal map or even on the occlusion map.

Let us know how your normal and occ maps come out.

I wish 3DC had a mode where you could import hardbody models and flat shaded areas are flat and smooth areas are treated as round.

A simply 6-sided flat shaded cube and an 8-sided cylinder with smooth shaded surface (to make it appear round) in the same model are a problem (at least I didn't find a nice solution).

When you import it without smoothing, the cylinder has facets. When you smooth on import, the cube is distorted (presuming smoothing is set high enough).

mike

[Andrew Shpagin]

Tank is really good! Only color and dirt should be painted.

To StereoMike: Oliver has imported mesh without smoothing. Initial mesh is enough high-poly, so everything looks smooth.

[digman]

Oliver

Thanks for posting your progress pic. I enjoy seeing the progress on the models. Looking forward to the seeing the texture pictures. Modeling tanks, airplanes,etc.. drives me crazy. LOL but Im sure glad that some do like it. I did model a hurricane aircraft, so maybe I will have to drive my self crazy and model something not organic in nature.

[StereoMike]

To StereoMike: Oliver has imported mesh without smoothing. Initial mesh is enough high-poly, so everything looks smooth.

I guess it doesn't look smooth. Look at the barrel (gun). It has facets. It should be round Such areas will mess up the normal map (and probably the occlusion pass: I was not able to smooth such things out even with high settings on the occlusion tool).

mike

[Oliver Thornton]

Thanks for the comments guys, I'll post some updated pics after I have a crack at the new Beta.

For smoothing, as Andrew says I am importing without smoothing, this mesh is stripped down poly mesh frozen from the original sub-D monster that rendered with more polys than the film model for Optimus Prime (no joke). This version of the model allows me to keep the mesh detail I need when rendered with a low smoothing angle. However, this does present some challenges in 3DC when painting due to the lack of smoothing of rounded geometry that is smoothed with surface normal smoothing in LW. So far I have not noticed chunking in the normals that would alarm me, but I will be keeping a close eye out for anomalies. If I cannot address them with the smooth tool the model is dense enough that I may be able to get away with a smooth import adjusted to a low enough angle to just round out the curves. If that doesn't work maybe Andrew can address the issue, but I would rather figure out a workflow with 3DC's current version that preserves the details.

-Oliver

[Oliver Thornton]

Quick update, started over from scratch.

There are some smoothing issues still, but I think Andrew plans to address these sometime soon. The texture painting is perfect though, and I can get occlusion or grit procedurally if I have to, so I'm still pretty happy with the results so far.

-Oliver

[Andrew Shpagin]

Very good! I have received your letter, I hope to make all required changes (AO with hidden objects) today.

btw, it could be good to post image in render quality or with AO that is put over all object. It will make image less "2D"