SE5a WIP

[bzhyoyo]

Hi all,
don't know if it should be in the obstacle course or here, but anyway, here we go : this is my SE5a WIP done in 3DSmax. It's a low poly model designed for OFF (the WWI mod for cfs3) - I'm about to get 14,000-15,000 for LOD100, which is about right for this sim, provided I get lower lods with lower polycounts.

Still a few details to sort out, but it's almost there. Critics welcome.
I'm not really versed in the rendering aspect of modeling, so some shadows are probably not right.

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/4434/mm017tc.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/5701/mm025tr.th.jpg (http://img513.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mm025tr.jpg)

http://img513.imageshack.us/img513/4360/mm035op.th.jpg (http://img513.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mm035op.jpg)

http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/8164/mm056qk.th.jpg (http://img400.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mm056qk.jpg)

http://img400.imageshack.us/img400/3999/mm043yq.th.jpg (http://img400.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mm043yq.jpg)

Now a question : how would you model a WWI propeller. I've had several tries at lofting it but I probably don't use the right method, any advice will be very helpful, especially concerning the transition from the blade to the hub.

here is a pic of the prop :

[Galgot]

Wow ! A low poly model ? Looks very nice ! I don't know sims very much... Impressed that nowadays sims can handle nice detailled model like that...
Bout your question, My first idea would be to start from a cylinder, then extrude some side faces, several times, twisting and flatening them ... Then it would be a lot of vertices moving to get the shape right with a plan...

Kenavo

[Spinner]

bzhyoyo,
I've a tute on low poly hubs thats part of a series on modelling for TargetWare flight sims with AC3D we put together for a wave of guys keen to make their favorite plane to fly.
Its 25MB so I'll dig out a RAR and see how big it is. Best would be to give you a link to them all. Theres 10 films all told.
Maybe I can work out how to put them into the web space I've never used? :)
You're not going to get the prop that good in low poly but good enough.
I've a series of pics of the original Sopwith wooden pieces used to make the props and been meaning to try putting them together then smoothing them off just like the factory did but in my app.

[kevjon]

Nice work, and should render up pretty well even with the low poly aspect of the model.

About propellers. They are made the same way as your wing and then just go to plan view and rotate the vertices along its length to different amounts to put the twist into the prop.

[bzhyoyo]

Galgot and Kevjon : thanks, here are some wireframes. 15,000 polys is indeed a lot for older game engines but time moves on :)

http://img351.imageshack.us/img351/7601/mm102xm.th.jpg (http://img351.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mm102xm.jpg)

http://img311.imageshack.us/img311/9708/mm075sg.th.jpg (http://img311.imageshack.us/my.php?image=mm075sg.jpg)

Spinner, I would be very interested by your tuts. If it's too much bother for you to set up a site, I can pm you my mail. Cheers.

[giant551]

pretty good use of the low poly mesh :D looking real nice

[Skyraider3D]

Very nice!

[bzhyoyo]

Hi all,

high time for an update. LOD100 (about 17,000 polys) is complete and mapped for the most part (the textures are no ready though). I intend to
use one big map (1024x1024) for the fuselage,etc... and another for the details (the lewis gun, the engine, the padding, etc...)

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/2425/lod10001yp4.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

The modelling of the VC is also complete (about 22,000 polys) and I'm quite scared of mapping all these tiny bits! Mapping is quite fun
for me when it comes to big parts but small parts are another story.

http://img47.imageshack.us/img47/3310/vc02qq0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)

Click on the thumbnails for larger pics.

http://img46.imageshack.us/img46/6374/lod10002fe3.th.jpg (http://img46.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lod10002fe3.jpg)

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/5585/lod10004zm0.th.jpg (http://img117.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lod10004zm0.jpg)

http://img117.imageshack.us/img117/649/lod10005ai8.th.jpg (http://img117.imageshack.us/my.php?image=lod10005ai8.jpg)

http://img50.imageshack.us/img50/6201/vc01lt9.th.jpg (http://img50.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vc01lt9.jpg)

http://img106.imageshack.us/img106/9973/vc04eb9.th.jpg (http://img106.imageshack.us/my.php?image=vc04eb9.jpg)

A lot of work still to do as I intend to learn texture baking for the VC.

Evan, I got the gradient idea from your wip post. Thanks! :D

[Lukem]

Nice update - looking forward to seeing the textures!

[Demons7th_Delta]

Very nice cockpit details. I look forward to seeing the texture. Looks likes CFS3 is still coming along.

[bzhyoyo]

Hi all,
an update about textures : no weathering yet, no specular, but the diffuse map is getting there, in fact it's nearly finished. Now to tweak the specular textures, and the shaders settings.
Work on Lod90 is well underway, and I have to map the VC (some headaches coming there...). Hope you'll like them.
http://img221.imageshack.us/img221/182/soh16fm0.jpg (http://imageshack.us)
Shot at 2007-06-28

http://img186.imageshack.us/img186/1971/soh17cd3.th.jpg (http://img186.imageshack.us/my.php?image=soh17cd3.jpg)

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/9248/soh13mo7.th.jpg (http://img528.imageshack.us/my.php?image=soh13mo7.jpg)

http://img528.imageshack.us/img528/8361/soh12qb5.th.jpg (http://img528.imageshack.us/my.php?image=soh12qb5.jpg)

[Skyraider3D]

Good to see you're back on it. Looking better and better!
That reminds me, I made a couple of detail pics of the SE5a last month. Will e-mail them to you when I have a minute...

[bzhyoyo]

I put my grubby hands on whatever pics of the SE5, even if I already have a 345 Mo folder of references ! Thanks a lot !
PS : I'm not "back" on it, I'm just learning and ... I'm slow :rolleyes:

[giant551]

Thats really great:) Doesn't look low poly at all:)

[mrys]

It is low poly?! It is mean, that it is poly placed just over the ground:lol:?

I like it!

[bzhyoyo]

21433 polies for Lod100 :)

[falcon012]

Beautiful looking model!

[ptk]

nice wrk [:)]

[bzhyoyo]

Thanks for the comments. :)
Final tweaks for the LOD100 textures within the game engine - sharpening the textures before converting them to dds has been really helpful in bringing out the details, even if I think there's still some tweaking to do. But at least I'm quite pleased with the hue of the PC10 (which is quite an achievement as this colour is almost as controversial as the "white" zeros :lol: )

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194343432/19912471/78/sharp-se5a_01.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194343432/19912471/78/sharp-se5a_01.jpg.html)

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194343433/19912471/67/sharp-se5a_02.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194343433/19912471/67/sharp-se5a_02.jpg.html)

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194343434/19912471/77/sharp-se5a_03.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194343434/19912471/77/sharp-se5a_03.jpg.html)

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194343438/19912471/19/sharp-se5a_04.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194343438/19912471/19/sharp-se5a_04.jpg.html)

C&C welcomed.

[Lukem]

That looks great!

When talking about the colour, are you talking about the green? Based on what I've seen, it looks pretty close to me.

[bzhyoyo]

Thanks. :)
Yes, the "green". Or is it brown? ;)
This ambiguity is what I wanted to achieve, and yes, I think I'm pretty close, even if it depended a lot on how each aircraft aged apparently.

[bzhyoyo]

Back again. I've tweaked the specular map (basically increased the lighting) and here are the results, various angles to appreciate the effect. I think it's just a bit too strong and that I should decrease it very slightly. And I'll have to tweak the roundel white because it doesn't look as creamy as I want now with stronger specular hightlights.
Your thoughts about it ? :)

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194686923/12420815/90/spec01.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194686923/12420815/90/spec01.jpg.html)

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194686924/12420815/56/spec02.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194686924/12420815/56/spec02.jpg.html)

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194686924/12420815/55/spec03.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194686924/12420815/55/spec03.jpg.html)

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194686924/12420815/77/spec04.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194686924/12420815/77/spec04.jpg.html)

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194686925/12420815/38/spec05.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194686925/12420815/38/spec05.jpg.html)

http://zea.yoopix.org/thmb/1194686925/12420815/42/spec06.jpg (http://zea.yoopix.org/1194686925/12420815/42/spec06.jpg.html)

[kevjon]

Looking really nice bzhyoyo.

All the colors look spot on to me and specular looks fine, rib tapes are really well done.

Just needs some weathering.

[Lukem]

The ribbing looks superb, I'd like to see the specular a bit more patchy - it'll certainly help to make it look a bit more weathered - it does look a touch too clean at the moment.

[mcebas]

Very nice model, i like soo much!!:lol:
only think so that with weathering itll see more real...

[bzhyoyo]

Hi, long time no see :)

First, I think I took your comments into account, so I'll soon show new screenshots in game to see the work on the spec map to dirty things up a bit.

In the meantime, here are two renders to show the progress on cockpit textures.

Yoopix - cockpit_08.jpg (http://yoopix.org/photo/1/77162-cockpit_08.jpg)

Yoopix - cockpit_09.jpg (http://yoopix.org/photo/1/77163-cockpit_09.jpg)

C&C welcome :)

[Skyraider3D]

That cockpit looks lovely, mate! :cool:

[denders]

That's a very nice cockpit!

[bzhyoyo]

Here are some screenshots in game (WIP of course). C&C welcomed.

1) the VC. I'm happy about it, but there's something about the lack of shadows that bothers me. The lighting is a bit too uniform and I'm wondering if I shouldn't put stronger shadows in the textures (above all for the bottom). It would give more depth. But contrast is very strong in the game engine, and the result is quite different from what I can see in my modelling and painting programmes. :(
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/1076/shot090908100024hl5.th.jpg (http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=shot090908100024hl5.jpg)

2) then there's the diffuse texture (2048x2048) and a specular map (1024x1024) and... a reflection map (1024x1024). The hit on performances is not too much and gives a hint of these doped aircrafs that were quite reflective. It's not too visible on these screens unfortunately. Some things remain to be finetuned like the cockpit textures for the external model, the fuselage struts colour, etc...
http://img222.imageshack.us/img222/3296/shot090908100110in6.th.jpg (http://img222.imageshack.us/my.php?image=shot090908100110in6.jpg)
http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/7073/shot090908100213dg7.th.jpg (http://img360.imageshack.us/my.php?image=shot090908100213dg7.jpg)

3) The underside. I don't know if I should tone down the effect or not.
http://img360.imageshack.us/img360/7705/shot090908100505fg1.th.jpg (http://img360.imageshack.us/my.php?image=shot090908100505fg1.jpg)
there's also this moire effect on the radiators because of the lines.
http://img293.imageshack.us/img293/5707/shot090908100455ze9.th.jpg (http://img293.imageshack.us/my.php?image=shot090908100455ze9.jpg)

[Skyraider3D]

Looks great! Only things I would suggest it too make the dark colour a little shinier and break up the specular by a stronger weathering effect.