WIP: stuff you are working on!

[Commando84 0]

Nice Ak Neph, any chance for a pic with non black background? it could be a bit hard to see the weapon at daylight

[Sennacherib 0]

too much nice for Arma

[scubaman3D 0]

too much nice for Arma  

I agree...the engine won't do that justice neph

[MontyVCB 0]

Very good neph, had to look really hard for a minute to make sure it was not just a photograph but an actual model. Its amazing what you can do now with 3D creation programs. Well done.

[Panda-PL- 0]

To be completely honest the magazine seems to stand out a bit. More detail on specular? More wear on edges?

The receiver is definitely my favourite part of it and the ring around flash disperser is really sweet. I also love the detail where gas piston enters the bed.

[nephilim 0]

thanks.

remeber the mag is plastic.

wear and tear isnt that obvious like on the metal parts.

its got some scratches tho

[namreg 0]

it looks impressive, I love it.

[Panda-PL- 0]

thanks.

remeber the mag is plastic.

wear and tear isnt that obvious like on the metal parts.

its got some scratches tho

I did a little photo search to see how this material reflects light...

Here I spotted some strange variation of surface glossness (last two mags illuminated, wear?):

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/9357/545magassortmentgj2.jpg

But then again these are old magazines, the late ones look much more "even" (although still a little bit shiny).

http://img403.imageshack.us/img403/5613/545mag20rdlgvv4.jpg

I think the side of (your) magazine is on par with lately produced magazines.

Now I think it's the light added to front and rear of the magazine box that make it look weird (like a pice of worn steel).

http://img297.imageshack.us/my.php?image=magou8.jpg

If these are part of real time rendering then it's fine, but on the render they look like a light-grey drawing on diffuse.

[nephilim 0]

i see what you mean.

my magazine has some photo details on it, thats why theres the strange sheen.

ive tricked a bit there :P

the general surface of the new mags seems to be pretty rough, similar to a flat brushed ABS plastic surface.

ill try to minimalize that effect.

shouldnt be too hard

but i dont think it looks like steel

[Inkompetent 0]

Holy schmoly that's a good looking AK!

Was also kind'a confused about the metal ring, but it sure makes sense since the cleaning rod can be a bit tricky to get hold of.

I'd suggest some wear and tear on the muzzle. Both from the shooting and from the metal ring that ought to cause some damage to the paintjob when one pulls out of the cleaning rod.

Also some scratches/dents to the glass fiber-plastic parts would look nice. Nothing much, but so those parts seems to have the same wear as the metal.

Nice details with the worn paint along the notch on the fire selector and the lever that releases the upper part of the front grip, although I'd suggest even heavier wear from the fire selector. It tends to be very firm and scratches the paint off quite quickly.

Oh, btw. Can't see the star-stamp in front of the serial number on the left side of the receiver.

[nephilim 0]

the muzzle is already pretty abused.

might just not be THAT evident in the render.

[namreg 0]

This one is for you guys!!... C' ya all in September!!!!

[rise 0]

@namreg: Sweet! it looks awesome!

Hi everyone!

This is my first try at making a model for a game.

Im trying to get my head around edgeloop and lowpoly modelling.

This is what i got so far...critic, suggestions are very welcomed!

http://www.andreaslaessker.com/Misc/oh58d_kiowa_warrior_wire5.jpg

[Punisher5555 0]

rise,

Change your forward cowling to the new version. Get all your pictures from our Kiowapilots gallery.

http://www.kiowapilots.com/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=519

[rise 0]

@Punisher5555: Do you mean the version where the front of the cowling is sloped backwards more? If so i´ve ajusted that on the current version.

Here´s how it looks now.

http://www.andreaslaessker.com/Misc/oh58d_kiowa_warrior_wire6.jpg

[Punisher5555 0]

Negative rise. The version you want to use is the one that is more bulbous <--spelling.

[Panda-PL- 0]

I'm struggling with textures for now.

This is very early version. I know it's overdone on the magazine. this was supposed to be only slightly lighter but got amplified somewhere in the process (prolly I changed the layer order, lol).

A magazine COULD look like that after years of inattentive using, it's a steel one. However it would simply be replaced before this happens.

Scratches that loo too thick are also WIP. :/

Question:

I only use Green channel of specular but still the scratches look much darker when not illuminated (even with added scratches to diffuse - this is why the light lines on edges). Is there a way to get rid of this darkening effect of SMDI?

http://img165.imageshack.us/img165/7678/wipte3.jpg

http://img103.imageshack.us/img103/7025/wipgu3.jpg

http://img299.imageshack.us/img299/3933/wipfs2.jpg

Edit2: Lowering Specular Power in RVMAT to about 35 solved it, it also made normal map look better.

[thepiespy 2]

i dont know if you could apply this to putting scratches on the spec-map, but for example on this BIS GP30 re-texture i did for practice i used a 1-2px brush, either using the dodge tool, or a 50% gray brush and setting the layer to linear dodge. you could also try looking for some metal-scratch brushes.

[nephilim 0]

@ panda

did you also paint the scratches into the diffuse map?

or did you only paint the scratches in the spec map?

if its only the spec map, i wouldnt wonder why you get dark specs

also i think you spec power is set too high.

you have really sharp specs there, whereas the gun surface is rough in RL, and the spec should bloom alot / be more soft.

those scratches dont really look too convincing.

try it like thepiespy said.

for my part i used  a base brushed alluminium layer that ive masked and then painted over the mask with a very fine brush, random size/shape in a variation of 1-2 pixels.

also custom brushes!

try to understand where scratches are occuring, adding scratches all over the body doesnt make too much sense and only gives the impression of it being eldered manually.

btw your base texture is very uniform.

i know that most rifles appear black, but several parts are more like dark dove grey with yellow tint in RL.

eg the fronsight/gas block, fire selector, bolt catch, barrel.

if you get color variantions into it, itll look far more realistic.

get in some noise in either the specmap or into the diffuse map for the plastic parts, most of the are rough, and the noise will help it.

the mag is overdone and most of all not really thought about.

you got a magpull on there, hence there wont be much scratches around the magpull.

eg top of the mag many scratches, down to magpull, less scratches, as the magpull creates a wedge, where the mag has no contact with any surface.

same for the bottom of the mag.

also the paint looks chipped.

thats rarely the case, the paint would rather be scratched alot from abbrasion with other mags and pouches.

besides i think most US m4 yanks are made from brass and not steel, at least the always appeard yellowish/brown with the paint torn off.

also you dont really would need the rivets on the mag.

you can fake them with the normal, that part of th geometry doesnt give you an attack angle to disguise the geometry.

can you give use a wireframe?

[Panda-PL- 0]

I take it by rivets you don't mean these:

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Rivet

I was looking for those rivets for a second .

Yeah, I know what you mean, and I'd like to disagree, magazine is seen at flat angle, it would be obvious it's a normal map.

The mistake is making it sharp-edged, Gonna have to use normal to smooth it up a bit, or make it flat and use normal map only, as you've suggested. So in the end I have to agree with you anyway.

The problem with specular, as I've said, was specular power in RVMAT.

It now behaves normally:

http://img72.imageshack.us/img72/7098/wipfv8.jpg

I am working on the specular tooday, reducing a lot of its size.

I allready gave some wireframes in this thread, but I take it you couldn't seemuch detail.

Here are some detail closeups and magazine.

http://img179.imageshack.us/img179/8844/wipev3.jpg

It has triangulated upon export, no worries it's fixed in O2 (quadratulate). But O2 wireframe wouldn't tell you much.

Oxygen says 7194 faces for everything you see, 4510 without M203 and its accesories.

Lastly the base texture is flat, minus for slight AO overlay.

[MehMan 0]

The forward assist looks way too small.

[nephilim 0]

@panda.

you can leave geometry open in arma.

you also dont need to connect everything.

eg the arresting blocks for the fire selector, youve connected these to the lower receiver.

no need for that. you just place them as seperate objects.

it saves alot of polys.

[Panda-PL- 0]

@panda.

you can leave geometry open in arma.

it saves alot of polys.

Yeah, I know. But when I export it gets closed (and this way I for example have bottoms of picatinny rail details closed). I'll get rid of these manually, since they are unmapped = easy to filter out.

For now I'm back to modelling to solve the magazine problems.

[nephilim 0]

what format do export it as? program?

[Panda-PL- 0]

what format do  export it as? program?

Wings 3D, export as 3ds.

I tried some comromise approach to the magazine mapping problems...

I came out with triangular grooves + detailed hipoly surface -> detailed normal map. I must say it looks even better than I expected (even trough as you see it's still the old specular).

Far more natural.

Thanks for help mate, appriciated.

PS: it's not stanag, HK416 has its own HK steel magazine, they are interchangeable but they are normal bow mags.

It is oxydised, so it should be black.

I'll work on making it look like this one:

http://images.military.com/pics/SoldierTech_HK416-3.jpg