m1a1 work in progress

Here's an M1A1 tank I built for a map I'm working on. Couldn't find a good low poly one so i built it myself. Not the best work but I'm proud of it so far. Going to have the son in law help me with the texturing I think.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Nice.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Yeah you could throw some textured lines on that bad boy and call it done.. looks good.

I'm working on the textures now. I had to figure out all the AO and rendermapping which was a real treat.
I hopefully will have it done soon and it get it uploaded so everyone can use it if they want.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

I will have to give it a try.. make sure to give ya props too.. good job!

The mesh looks good except the square bit on the right looks a bit weird from this angle.

If all goes well with the texturing this'll come out a treat.

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Aaron's Stuff

aaron_da_killa said:
The mesh looks good except the square bit on the right looks a bit weird from this angle.

That would be the engine housing methinks. If I recall it's supposed to be that way.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

It's not exactly to scale as an abrams, but I needed one so I got it as close as I could with my meager modeling skills.
I figured to get it close but keep the polys down.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Here's an update on my tank. I redid alot of meshes on it and added some more goodies still having a hard time texturing it but I almost have it figured out.

,[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/m1a2.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/m1a2_side.jpg[/IMG]

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Its looking really good! keep up the great work.

The only thing that puppy needs is a cool "Killroy" pic.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Some more pics with better textures. Just adding all the little goodies to them. They're not all done but it's coming along.
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/m1a2_back.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/m1a2_rtside.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/m1a2_almostdone.jpg[/IMG]
I hope I get it out soon.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

I just pee'd.
Killroy makes an appearance. GO KILLROY.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

That was for you Orpheus.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Looking good. Are you going to grunge it up and bake light/shadows onto it?

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Aaron's Stuff

Pretty soon you're gonna have to decide what terrain your model is gonna represent.. Or have multiple versions perhaps.

Jungle or desert.. Winter or summer.

You'll bee needin some netting/camo net.
Also, some sand bags wouldn't hurt around that 50 cal.

BTW, it was my job to disable those guys. I was an Combat Engineer in the 80's.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I'm going to add some grunge and such, it's pushing 14k polys so don't know how much more I can add, not sure what the engine limit is but not much more I think even for a static prop.
I have an AO texture on it now, gonna have the son in law help me with the rest.
Texture wise I was thinking of having the desert sand one like is on it and maybe a winter one. Aw, hell I'll make a jungle one too.
That's cool Orph, fortunately or not I never got to serve in military. I got drafted during the Vietnam war but they wouldn't take me because I'm the last of my line (no male siblings or children). They wouldn't even let me join, which I still haven't figured out why.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

I understand why they wouldn't send you into combat but there are just to many non-combat positions you could have honorably held.

Their loss.

Just a thought. You might sacrifice the 50 and the hand rail for some sand bags and camo. It would look a bit more war realistic perhaps if you are so short on resource adding.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

It was probably paranoia on their part due to the era of the war and things going on. I don't know. I had my only male cousin die earlier in the war maybe that was why, I was ready to join even if I couldn't see combat. This was back in '72.
I actually had an officer and nco come to our house and see me and they told me they wouldn't take me no matter what.
I have also lost quite a few family members in WWII and Korean wars so...
they were probably pretty leary of ending a family tree back then I guess.

I will add some more goodies and try to keep the polys low on them, maybe I can squeak by with it. I planned on using this in L4d2, more of an urban setting but I'll see what I can do.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Well however it turns out you're doing a fine job with this tank.

/me bows

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The best things in life, aren't things.

+14K polys? That's not right. Where's your detail coming from?

You got me I'm a real amateur when it comes to modeling. I could be way off but my best guess is around 14k. Maybe I'm looking at tri count or edges, who knows. I really have no clue what I"m doing. There's no real way to know from my understanding.
Doesn't matter though if it works in game.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Wow sorry to hear that sgtfly. I can't help but feel extremely violated at the thought of myself being conscripted to go to war. Hopefully a time will come when people can discuss and resolve conflicts responsibly rather than the primitive option of war resulting in the waste of lots of money and human life.

"sgtfly" said:
You got me I'm a real amateur when it comes to modeling. I could be way off but my best guess is around 14k. Maybe I'm looking at tri count or edges, who knows. I really have no clue what I"m doing. There's no real way to know from my understanding.
Doesn't matter though if it works in game.

It's best to think/model in triangles when you're modeling props for Source because all the polygons will be broken into triangles when you export it to the game engine anyway so it's better to not use n-gons or create extra polys and try to take advantage of the extra flexibility you have with triangles.

All your extra polys may be coming from the wheels and other circular things. A model like this should be around 2000-4000 polys (which equates to 4000-8000 tris assuming all the polys are quadratic) and although it would work in game, for performance reasons you should always try to optimize the mesh of your model when you can.

Just for reference, the most detailed LOD model for Alyx is 8744 tris, the combine apc is 5202 tris and the air boat was 5944 tris.

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Aaron's Stuff

I know I triangulated it, so hopefully it is lower that I expected. Bad thing is I have to start over with some texturing, the wife shut down my computer when I was out and I lost some texturing data. Not a big deal but now I have to start over with some of it.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

gasps

Oh no.. Tell me Killroy wasn't a passing memory??!!??

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The best things in life, aren't things.

No kilroy will be there I'm just gonna get a better one a better on drawn up for the final version now.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Okay this is it, I'm only making one texture as of now for it. I hope to get it out this weekend after I assemble all the textures together.
I may make another one later for it but.... it was a real pain. If someone wants to make more I'll GLADLY send you the ao map I put together for it, and the any other files you'd need.
Here's the final look for it, hope you like it.
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/done-1.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/done2.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/done3.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/done4.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/done5.jpg[/IMG]
[IMG]http://i82.photobucket.com/albums/j262/boppa54/done6.jpg[/IMG]

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Looking good mate.

Some remarks though, is the writing on the tank supposed to be spray painted on? If so I suggest you search for a spray paint font, there's some really good ones out there that look convincing.

Also the lines on the side of the tank in the first screenshot looks like they were added in ms paint. They should be a bit more subtle and not look like they were plopped on top of the texture, a normal map may help to make it look more convincing.

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Aaron's Stuff

I think it looks great. I cannot comment on the paint except to say that some of it on a real tank will be stenciled and some graffiti. As far as game tanks go, this ones as good as any I have seen and better than most.

Good job bud.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

I haven't done any normal maps or such yet. I'm gonna tweak it yet but the texturing is basically done as far as grunge and color. This was a b***h to get the AO maps to come out right for some reason.
I have an expert coming to help me out with the texture so it should get updated later.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

If you wanted some extra pizazz you should build a very high poly version of the tank (based on the same low poly version ... technically you're suppose to make the high one first then simply it) ... use some software (can't remember the name) to make a normal map based on the difference in detail in the high and low poly models, and you will get some awesomely detailed low poly results.

You're suppose to use this for displacement mapping ... but it would work for normal mapping too (they operate on the same principle)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

You can do it all with any high end 3d program and PS, I didn't know how at the time to do that. I do now but maybe my next build of something I will build a hp first.
I was using softimage xsi 2011 trial when I built this it is a bit different than the Mod Tool, my son in law is getting me a license for Modo which I have to learn all over again.
I'm thinking a Bradley would go along with the M1 real nice.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Sorry I haven't got this out or posted about it lately, but the wife has me remodeling some of the house right now. Just finishing up the back hallway so I should be able to get back to work on it soon.
My daughter and son in law are gonna be home next week so I have to get this remodeling finished. She is pregnant with our (a girl, their first) sixth grandchild, so I don't want the house all torn apart or unsafe.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Congrats on the grand baby... In advance.
I know the line will form soon so I am jumping the gun a bit.

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Thanx Orph, we're all excited about it. We only have 1 g-dau right now and 5 g-sons so this is exciting.
They were a bit disappointed because they will miss the Valve vaccation this year, but they are coming home instead. I plan on picking his brain alot when he's home!

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.

Better get a better bra to cover them nipples, don't want to poke the babies eye out.

The tank is looking great by the way!

Le Chief said:
It's best to think/model in triangles when you're modeling props for Source because all the polygons will be broken into triangles when you export it to the game engine anyway so it's better to not use n-gons or create extra polys and try to take advantage of the extra flexibility you have with triangles.

Oh fuck no mate, I don't care if you're modelling for source or not, that is singlehandedly terrible advice. Do not rely on triangles, and do not ever use that mindset, triangles are absolute shit to deal with, and absolutely messy. When modelling, always use quads or polygons, otherwise you're making everything unnecessarily more difficult on yourself, and making your model an absolute bitch to work with.

I agree Crollo,

I wouldn't imagine it would be possible to model strictly with triangles; even if you're modeling for Source, it may be in your best interest to use n-gons to get the look you're going for, and then cut them up afterwards. -But I still wouldn't suggest doing that, since then if you wanted to make changes, you're kinda screwed sticking with just a jumble of triangle meshes. Which for non-organic type models would stink having to select faces and move around over and over.

Source does this automatically for a reason. I would imagine you just need to play it smart and make informed decisions about the number of polys you're creating when everything gets converted into triangles.

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Blog: www.playingarchitecture.net
LinkedIn: Eric Lancon
Twitter:@Riven202

As far as I'm aware, in graphics land. Getting cut into triangles from quads, or whatever, is something you do when you're done and prepping it for the game.

The fact that it's triangles in game is for rendering purposes. But it makes no sense to make creating the model overtly complex to satisfy the renderer when there's no real reason since subdividing polygons is a pretty simple task for the modeler (program)

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Blame it on Microsoft, God does.

Crollo said:

Le Chief said:
It's best to think/model in triangles when you're modeling props for Source because all the polygons will be broken into triangles when you export it to the game engine anyway so it's better to not use n-gons or create extra polys and try to take advantage of the extra flexibility you have with triangles.

Oh fuck no mate, I don't care if you're modelling for source or not, that is singlehandedly terrible advice. Do not rely on triangles, and do not ever use that mindset, triangles are absolute shit to deal with, and absolutely messy. When modelling, always use quads or polygons, otherwise you're making everything unnecessarily more difficult on yourself, and making your model an absolute bitch to work with.

Just because you can't handle triangles doesn't mean that was bad advice, maybe you should stop being so lazy and practice? We're talking about games here where performance is crucial, any professional 3d artist would just frown at you for not taking the extra effort to produce a more optimised model.

And I didn't mean you have to build the model using triangles from the start, although sometimes that is better to do particularly for organic models. You can build the model using polygons/n-gons and then convert the model to a mesh (triangles) and optimise it by merging/manipulating the vertices.

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Aaron's Stuff

There is a far vast difference between making things overly complicated to yourself and not being able to handle something.

To go to the school you can just go down the road. But some people like to go to the other end of town, taking every winding side road, shortcut, and driving through backyards and literally ending up driving in miles at a time all to wind back to the school. Does the person who takes the easy route [down the street] a pussy, or is the guy who takes the supposedly 'hard' route an idiot?

Modelling in triangles is bullshit no matter how you take or give it, shading errors, geometrical errors, UV unwrapping is absolute brutal with quads, try quadrupling your polycount, and THEN try unwrapping again.
Mate, I don't care how 3D engines translate models, it's not the correct way and if anybody has taught you it is, then they are full of shit.

Here's a model made of quads: Clean, easy to work with, easy to use. If I wanted to add some extra geometry here to create a edgeloop, I just select the plainly visible edges, and connect Here is a triangular version of the model. Notice it is a massive garbled mess of spiderweb like geometry, unclean, extremely difficult to work with, but let's try adding a edgeloop. I had to select TWICE the amount of edges to get the same result only with worse control, with faceted face lighting, and messy geometry. Let's connect. At this point I could just not bear it anymore, I tried to do a full edgeloop for the stock, but ended up just reconverting it back and doing it in two minutes: I also don't get how it's even possible to 'model in triangles' without eventually just committing suicide from the sheer difficult of it. Even performing absolute bare basic tasks to create new geometry takes twice as much effort and time.

Lol those screenshots you posted speak for themselves.

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Aaron's Stuff

Le Chief said:
And do you realise how many polygons you have wasted in that weapon model? You have like 10x more polygons than you need. I think those screenshots speak for themselves.

Well I've yet to see anything quality from you so what the fuck should I care. I'll keep making models with some form of detail and shape and you can stick to triangles, it's all good.

Haha ok. Whatever you say.

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Aaron's Stuff

Anyways, Again Sgt, no idea how you could get that high of a polycount but if I was you, I would definitely do everything in my power to cut down on the polygons. A lot.

I can understand wanting to photo illustrate a point but over 3 freaking megs is asking way to much. You could have done almost the same thing with under 400k (excepting the last one and I dunno about it)

3 megs worth of screens is asking to much. I'm sorry but it just is.

[edit]

The imgur plugin for firefox isn't the perfect solution, but it seems to cut file sizes by 50% in most cases.

[IMG]http://i.imgur.com/ZueqT.jpg[/IMG]

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The best things in life, aren't things.

Look at all those extra polys and sub divisions that aren't being used Orph.

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Aaron's Stuff

Well actually I picked up Luxology Modo and I am remodeling it now. I imported it as an obj and it was around 9500 polys mostly the wheels some of the smaller parts.
Right now it's down to about 7400 polys, Modo kicks with what i've learned so far, the son in law helped me out a bit so i have a good start. They renderer looks alot easier and more flexible.
I try not to model in triangles now(part of the learning process)though at times they serve a purpose depending on the model.
Reducing polys is so much easier in modo, I recommend anyone to try it.

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Light is faster than sound:That is why some people appear bright until you hear them speak.

Your riches in life are family and friends, everything else is just a distraction.