zp_m13_spawagen

[zenith-ply]

New project.

http://img253.imageshack.us/img253/7355/image6c.jpg (http://img253.imageshack.us/i/image6c.jpg/)

[zenith-ply]

Spa(h)wagen

http://img233.imageshack.us/img233/9036/16170758.jpg
http://img515.imageshack.us/img515/6555/18414702.jpg

Not the most difficult model, but a good brush-up on new texturing techniques. Focusing on a part of the uv and accidentally hitting a global 3d effect for the whole map can cause problems if left unchecked for some time.

[Detoeni]

Hello mate,
Looks good, intresting subject, are you doing a complete train or just this bit?

Quick crit on the textures, your shadows and detail on the texture look to be one, they sort of blend into the same coulor, while the coloured sections are very flat.
I normal use a layer mixture of light noise and despecaled (both gray scale overlays) to break up flat colour. In the below image the despecaled layer is a bit heavy atm, so its quite easy to see.
Also the detail I have added to the first half is very light, with this model I have been working up a hight map that adds the extra detail you see in the second half of the image. Once my base textures (on the left) is complete, I can render out the lighting detail seen on the right in Max and bake that onto my origin texture. This should give some nice depth to the detail without having to paint too many shadows direct on to the texture. It also makes changing the way the shadows are cast very quick.

http://i216.photobucket.com/albums/cc142/Detoeni/side_01.jpg

Nice to see you still about.

[zenith-ply]

are you doing a complete train or just this bit?

A nice idea for a challenge, but no. Someone made a request and I fired this off using a bit of my t34 hull that was never released.

your shadows and detail on the texture look to be one, they sort of blend into the same coulor, while the coloured sections are very flat

I think some of color change is just the unrealistic shadows made by the engine. The base texture was a flat gray with a fine asphalt texture layer at low opacity. PSP usually creates a small shading change, but you have to alter the "height" value of the effect. I'll look into that if I'm on the right track. I will note that the panzer spahwagon is not the most detailed vehicle to begin with.

in Max and bake that onto my origin texture

Ms3d is still my main game tool and does not do that. All by selecting areas and applying 3d tools in psp.

Nice to see you still about.

Like-wise. I've been busy attacking Wildfire Pro (3d cad), but I'm still up for throwing more stuff into wolfy here and there.

[Detoeni]

Wildfire Pro looks intresting.
I've just grabbed a bit of sofware that may be of intrest, XSI 6 - Softimage. The older versions (like 6) are free to use and it does do render baking to textures + high poly modeling.
http://usa.autodesk.com/adsk/servlet/pc/index?siteID=123112&id=13571400
I doubt it would be much use for wolf, I am hoping to use it for some Left 4 Dead mapping, hammer is just a little too limited for what I want to do. About the best bit about it is you can set smooth groups to brushes, which is just as well as there are no curves like what you get in radiant.

[zenith-ply]

Is it me or is there an increasing trend of the separation of geometrical type modelling programs from character model applications? I was disapointed to see that programs like zbrush more tended to character modelling seem quite inept or lack the versatility of basic hard-edge geometry creation. It can be done, but the last zbrush gallery I saw w. vehicle presence was 0. As an addon I can see though. I will be checking that program out. Thanks.

[Detoeni]

zbrush is a bit of an exception as it is primarily a sculpture/normal map generation tool. A lot of other model programs are now trying to emulate what it does to claw back a bit of there market share that was lost when it came out and to catch up with there very good tec.
Zbrush uses a texture at its base with a z off set to set the position of polys, where as app's like max have verts with a fixed position in world space.
This is why zbrush is not very good a simpler mesh work. Most of the artist I work with use max or silo to make there base mesh in, and then import it into zbrush to add in the detail in a few days, that would have taken many moons to construct using more conventional techniques.

The methods/tec that are used in zbrush are also making there way into games as well, crysis uses voxels (similar to zbrush's pixols) for some of its terrain elements as a texture will use a lot less memory than the raw mesh.

edit: this page has a good few links of use (including download)
http://developer.valvesoftware.com/wiki/XSI
There are also plugins for unreal 3 and crytek 2