Game vehicle - speeder bike
 

I joined the SM challenge last month to build a game vehicle model with under 30,000 polys. I ran out of time before I'd really started, but I'd like to carry on anyway as i like the theme.

So taking influences from the imperial speeder bike from Star Wars ep6, a Ducati 1000 and the 'Ghost' vehicle from Halo... This is what i'm building (...and yes i know the concept is simple :p)

....and this is what I have so far. I'm happy with what i've done at the moment, but theres still a long way to go. Working on hand controls right now, then onto bottom section of the hull, then wings. The above view is a bit brutal at the moment 'cos it hasn't been connected yet. Crits welcome obviously :)

thats a nice sketch man kinda makes me wanna design something similar to that.

Thanks man, to be honest I think I'm a bit rubbish at concept art or whatever you want to call it. Because I was kind of designing while i was actually drawing it, I drew it in a bit of an odd way. I used vector paths & strokes (& erasers) so I could edit pretty easily what I had already done if it didn't look right later with other bits added. I really should have done an 'above' view of the speeder too, probably would have made things easier for me but I think I'll be ok.

I have pretty much done the hand controls now to where I want them, might still have a tweak or two : > I'll post more pics when I have the wings done - I decided to do that next :)

Because I'm new to game art as well as modelling, i also hope someone can help me out - How many seperate peices of geometry is the norm for vehicles? And how will that affect UV mapping? Any other tips are also welcome and probably somewhat required :) Oh also, the challenge limit i was given is 30,000 polys, but to be honest that sounds way high for the kind of game I could see this vehicle in - anyone have any idea what kind of limit would be appropriate for an engine like Quake 4 or HalfLife2?

Here's where I'm at so far. I have a top section hull, footpedals & hand controls done. I am now working on the wings as you can see from the wire below. At the moment i'm just aiming for 'clean' work, with a low/medium poly count by todays standards (at the moment 4358 polys with both sides combined). Hopefully I can add cool details later on.

I'll continue working on the wings for a bit then I'll start piecing it togther with the bottom section hull, if anyone has any suggestions; creative or critical, input is welcome!

Edit : If anyone knows of any really fast & simple render / lighting setups, could you point me in the right direction so I can show you better renders!

Progress...

its looking good so far but can you add more lights to the scene cause some other parts are hard to see.

Yeah i've decided enough is enough, im just sorting out a basic 3 point now. i havent really looked at the whole render/lighting thing before but i figure now is a good time, as just the default lights suck :)

Right, I know its hardly the worlds best render but hopefully its a bit better than previous ones. Been tidying up a little on what I already have before I move on to the front and underside hull... which will be housing the guns :ninja:

Still a bit unsure how to end the wings on the far tips... hmm.

Since posting the last screenshot I've made a few minor changes here and there, mainly just shaping the body so it looks nice and sleek. I'll post progress when the underside hull and guns are completed :D

I was going to smooth the hull, but I'm still unsure of what a decent polycount would be for a doom3/quake4/halflife type of engine. If anyone knows anything about this sort of stuff, can you please set me a limit... the smooth option looks great on it but adds a rather hefty polycount...

quote from http://www.simracingworld.com/gamesl...tham_Racing_3/

Thanks for the link and info but unfortunately i dont think that will help me. Polycounts in games vary a hell of a lot, I know car games can afford to spend more polys on their vehicles as there aren't many of them on your screen at the same time that often.

For my vehicle i'd like it to have a polycount that would suit a battlefield 2 style of gameplay (large open maps, lots of people per side, 1st person shooter) on a newer engine like doom3. Hope thats a bit clearer.

Then I would go up to 10k polys. It really depends heavily on how the game is designed. If there are some kind of speed up techniques like level of detail you could use a 50k model when the model is close and 1k if it's very far away. But around 3-10k for a vehicle is pretty normal for games developed the last couple of years.

Thats brilliant, ta mate. I'll go for a max of 10k then cheers, as i know level of detail is at least used in bf2 and quake4.

Well I've been working on it tonight... I'll have more progress tomorrow after some cleaning up and attaching the wings. I'm also thinking about putting the 'side boosters' on the wings instead of the rear top hull... I'll have a play with it.