Latest Render

While my Tau Hammerhead is coming along nicely, I needed a bit of a break from it.  I decided to model something from either the Imperial Guard or Space Marines codex.  I don’t have either army, but I do have a Leman Russ that I was planning on turning into an Ork battlewagon..  So it seemed like the natural choice for modeling..

The model is still in pieces which as actually a boon because I can hold and model each part individually and then assemble them.. or at least I hope its that easy..

As with the hammerhead I plan to show a render of the model for every 4 hours (or so) of work.

Note: This post will be updated a lot as I work on this model.

Leman Russ 01

First 4 hours — Believe it or not, that’s 4-ish hours there.   I wanted to take advantage of instancing for all the bolts and rivots as well as the spiral lathe for the springs.. took me a bit to figure that out..

What’s nice is, there is actually only ONE rivet and only ONE bolt assembly.  They are then instanced into the 8 bolt assemblies, and 90+ rivets you see here.  This means all I have to do is adjust one rivet, or one bolt and the others will match.. Or more importantly, texture only one and you texture them all.. Yay!

This mesh promises to be WAY cleaner than the Hammerhead mesh which at this point I’m embarrassed by..

Leman Russ 02

+2 hours — Okay I have added more features and details to the side of the hull.. The two side doors are open to the world now, as well as adding various other bits and greebles.  I’ll add doors later, as well as adding the sponson which can be used or not depending on the vehicle I actually want..  (Lots of different vehicles in the 40k universe use the same basic body.)  I have also started working on the track which I have to figure out how to correctly shape itself around the hull.  I know Modo has an ability to do this, but not sure what it is..  I may have to poke around on the forums to figure this one out..  (Note: the track is currently WAY undersized, I realizes this and it will be fixed)  All in all it’s going wonderfully.. I’m enjoying this quite a bit!

Leman Russ 03

+6 hours — or maybe even a bit more..  So for this addition you’ll note that there hasn’t been a huge addition.. but it took a long time..  That’s due to the tank track.. Holy crap I want to club a baby seal..  It took me ages to get the tracks in place and working.

I ended up having to do the entire thing by hand since the path instancing tool in modo just doesn’t work as advertised.  I followed all the tutorials I could find and none of them work.  It’s a really simple process too, but the results were completely wrong each time, OR the application would just crash..   It really irritated me to no end..

But at this point the tracks are in place and ready to go, as well as having the room to put in the roadwheels and what not behind the scenes, which I will do next.   Once I get those in place I can start adding the main body..  That or working on a sponson.. not sure which yet

Leman Russ 04

+3 hours — I finally completed the back/inner side of the tread housing.. The sides of the tank are pretty much complete at this time, sans the sponsons and texturing.. *gleee*   The more I look at the track the more I think they are a bit too thin.. I’ll have to beef them up a tad, but in order to do that I have to redo them all the way around the housing.. Ugh.. I’ll get to it..

I have instanced and mirrored the main side in order to see an opposite.. I’m trying to figure out about how far apart they should be for the tank innards to fit..   This render also signals a slightly different render style from the others.. I’m adding in the ambient occlusion data for the render in order to give the image a more gritty film look..  Fun fun!

Leman Russ 05

+2 hours — Roughing out the hull!  Well I have the basics of the hull roughed out..  Now for the painful process of multiplying every single edge around the entire thing to soften them a tad.  I typically would edge bevel everything but that’s just about the worst way to actually do it apparently..

Once I get the hull to subdivide the way I want/need it to such that it maintains the shape while providing clean lines I’ll start working on the hull mounted cannon.   I haven’t forgotten the sponsons or the track fix.. I’ll get to it.

At this point I’m not sure the best way to go about subpatching the hull.. I have tried a couple things and the results were never very good..  I’m going to post on the Luxology forums and see if they have any advice.. most the folks over there are stupidly gifted when it comes to this stuff.. someone is bound to have an idea..

Leman Russ 06

+5 hours — I spent today touching up a lot of things with the russ.. The tracks are looking a lot better now.  I thickened them up quite a bit, though you really can’t tell that via the render.. they are actually twice as thick as they were before..

I haven’t quite decided what I want to do about the hull with regards to rounding and what not.. My traditional method is to edge bevel instead of subpatch.. but subpatching looks way way better..  So I dunno..  I’ll probably just bevel this one too.. Either way, while thinking about that I went ahead and created the sponson and the bolter.. It’s just about 100% accurate, but looks kinda plain.. There aren’t a lot of details on there.. I might have to spice it up a tad..

I did create the 40k Imperial Aquila though.. I figured if I’m gonna have it on there its not going to just be a texture.. It’s gonna be modeled onto the tank.  I’ll have to put it in a bunch of places so I figured I might as well do a good job of it..   Came out quite nicely I think..

40k Imperial Aquila 01

+2 hours — I have completely redone the 40k Imperial Aquila.  The version that is in the 06 picture is good, and actually better looking than the one on the model, but my buddy who knows about these things explained how it was still wrong. So with that I completely redid it using an even more accurate picture to make the model.

I went WAY over board heh.. Each Aquila has over 3k polygons..  That’s more than the entire sponson.. Bolter and all..

Leman Russ SDS Example 01

+6 hours — Thanks to the information provided by folks like Michael Blackboum and Richard Hurrey I am going through and adding the edges necessary to correctly subpatch the body of the Leman Russ..

It’s a lot of work.. basically for each edge becomes roughly 7 edges.. (hard to explain that without pictures.. but just believe me.. )  So its a lot of polygon slicing..  The main point of which will be to give the hull a “real” look.   I could have just beveled all of the hard edges but that starts to a ) fail at certain intersections and b ) look less real as you zoom in.

Consider is this;  Imagine if you will two polygons intersecting at a 90 degree angle.  In reality nothing short of a razor blade has an edge like the one those two polygons have now created..  it just doesn’t look real.  By adding a bevel you can make it look more real, but as you zoom into that bevel the polygons become apparent..    But by subdividing as you zoom in the renderer automagically generates more and more polygons.. so it always looks smooth..  That’s a win for me.

Simply put, it looks more “real”..  This has been a trail let me tell you, but now that I understand the concept I’ll be doing all my models this way I think.. The results just look a lot better..

Leman Russ 07

+3 hours — Okay I have finished completely subdividing the hull of the tank and then went on to build the front little window hatch also using subdivison and subpatches.. It will take some getting used to but I can really see the power of doing things this way..

Now that I am not fixing parts of the model I had already created, I can now go on to actually continue creating stuff..  Next I plan to make the front turret..  Fun stuff!

Leman Russ 08

+4 hours — I have added the nose cannon as well as making some modifications to the sponsons bolter..  The new gun is completely subdivided and looks pretty good.  It looks like its too big to me but all my measurements assure me it’s the right size..   Maybe it wont look so out of place once I get the top turret in place.

There is a lot of stuff going on in the back of the tank that I have yet to even start on.. I’ll probably start tackling that next.

Leman Russ 09

+2 hours — I have been putzing around with several things for this update..   Firstly you’ll note a color change in my render.. heh I was goofing off with the light and environment settings to see what I could come up with..   I’ll probably keep playing with that so .. expect some differences..

Further, I roughed out the top turret housing and started working on that.. It doesn’t look to scale to me.. it looks small, but all my measurements say its correct..  *shrug*   I have also started adding detail to the rear of the vehicle.. Lots of work to do there..  I’m gonna begin on hatches and things first..

I have also been designing and pondering a couple animations with this and other 40k elements.. One of them deals with a drop pod which I need to model..

Current High Res Render

I frequently troll various 3D forums and just about always come away with a feeling of inadequacy.. There are quite a lot of extremely talented folks in the 3D field, and I often dream of being one.

Tonight I have embarked on yet another model making adventure — an attempt to create a very high quality model that actually looks real. In my search for something to create I chose a known object that is from another one of my hobbies, Warhammer 40k. I have decided to make a Tau Hammerhead.

Note: The image to the right will always be the latest high resolution render.  Click to enlarge.

My goal is to make a realistic looking “plastic model”. Meaning, I want to be able to make this model look very close to the plastic model I have on my desk. Not necessarily make it look “real” as in it can really fly and really exists, but rather make it look like its a real plastic model — If that makes sense.

To that end I took some high quality photos of my hammerhead (sans gun) with an attempt to get orthographic references that I could use as backdrops.

And I will be working in 4 hour blocks on this model, as I dont want my head to explode.

Here is what I have after my first 4 hours – doesn’t look like much but its actually extremely accurate and high poly.. heh

Another 4 Hours – looks nearly the same but I have more than doubled the poly count with details that are just not seen from this angle..

+4 – I went ahead and mirrored the for the render just to give me a sense of what it will look like.. I’m very happy. I spent the majority of this 4 hour block cleaning up ugly non-planer polys. Thanks to some helpful advice over at the Luxology Forums regarding ways to deal with non-planer polygons.

I think I have most of them under control, though I still would like a single tool that averages across multple vertices.. I’m tempted to post in the Luxology WIP forum, but some of those guys are REALLY good.. and I don’t want to embarrass myself.. heh Maybe when I get a tad further along.

+4 – Okay I have been fighting with the nose curve for hours now.. It took me forever to get it “right” and I still think its a tad off.. But this is as close as I can get it.. The nose area needs a lot of work, but for a roughed out version this isn’t terrible.

+4 – It actually took me every bit of this 4 hours to get the nose curves to work the way I wanted them to. At this point I call it “better”, but not yet to the point I want it.. It just still looks off to me. Next I work on some of the lower body curve.

+4 – I took a break from working on the main body of the hammer head and invested some time into the main gun.. So far so good…

+4 – I can honestly say that the turret sucked.. It was hard to get done because of its shape. A dome shape sprouting out of another dome, off center – fun fun.

Well a bunch of time has passed.. My main render / model machine died the bad death a while back and it has taken me quite sometime to get back up and running..

I’m still roughing out the model at this point, no serious details yet. In the shot below you can see I have loaded the turret, gun and main mesh all into one model and have begun working on the front drone mounts.

+4ish – I didn’t time it but I figure its roughly 4 hours. This update brings with it a new render style.. I plan to render all future example shots like this using the Ambient Occlusion setting in Modo.

I have added detail to the front of the tank and defined the burst cannon. Only one side though, as I haven’t instanced it yet. A lot more detail to be done here, but a good start.

Basic Texturing, No Detail

May 2009; Reboot of this project

+ 8 hours — Okay so.. The latest version of this thing is to the point where I can start trying to texture it..   I have always Suuuucked at texturing so this is a dive off the deep end.. I really really want to get a graphical tablet as you can’t take advantage of some of the power of Modo without one.   Here is where I am at right now..

+ 8 hours — Click to see I have continued to texture the model quite a bit and even went so far as to purchase a graphics tablet.. It’s Soooooo much easier to texture the model when using a pen!!   Especially considering the modo folks designed the program to use one.  heh  I’m having a lot of fun with this..  The image is a double stack front/back render and is a tad tall to include in the post.. so click the link to see it open in a lightbox in the page.

Turret Texture Test

+ 8 hours — Well I spent a good chunk of the day completely redoing the turret portion of the hammer head, adding a lot more detail as well as adding textures.  It’s not done yet.. I’m slowly using my tablet to add detail to the textures as well as playing with various noise amounts..  Its interesting finding the right balance..

I also spent quite a bit of time with the UV mapping tools to try to hone my UV skills.. One thing I used to be bad about (and still am in some cases) is just using an atlas explosion of the model into a UV.. Done.  I find that it’s not a very good method for UV’ing because you get strange artifacts and defects when painting..   You’re far better served actually correctly unwrapping the model and then positioning it on the map in order to maximize the available space..   I’m still learning this..

Fun stuff.. I’ll be adding this part of the mesh to the main model later this week.

More Texturing

+ 8 hours — I have been working on the body of the hammerhead.  I have mostly fixed the nose area which I think was bulbous and ugly previously.  It doesn’t perfectly match the actual physical model but at this point its probably as close as I can get it without completely starting over.

I have divided up the various areas into their respective colors and will begin the texturing process once I get the cockpit bump in place on top of the model.

So yet again it’s been a while since I worked on this.. I recently lost my harddrive and thought I lost this model entirely!!! Which lets be honest would have made me cry a little..  Lucky for me one of my coworkers managed to save the model off the drive for me and I have now backed it up to a raid 5 nas.. So shouldn’t happen again..

I am getting pretty close to being done with this model I think..  The back door, the landing gear and the chin turret still need to be completed but once that’s done I think I’ll count it done and stop working on it.

Over all I’m fairly happy with it but you can really tell as you look at the mesh that I didn’t know what I was doing in quite a few areas..