Hummer

[leonlabyk]

Been busy as have loads of models I need to create at the moment so my wolf project is gonna have to go on hold for a couple of weeks. Thought I would share one of the models that I am currently working on though.

[leonlabyk]

some wires

[leonlabyk]

wire

[leonlabyk]

Wire1

[leonlabyk]

Wire2

[leonlabyk]

one more

[bullet1968]

Impressive mate!!! Like the look in the first shot...gives it a surreal kinda look. Are you going to texture/paint?

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

Cheers bullet, Yeah am gonna texture it as soon as I get headus to layout the uv's. I used to use roadkill but no free version for the mac so am gonna purchase headus in the next couple of weeks. Have already uv'd the outer shell as I find hard surface stuff much easier, although there are a lot of characters I have made so I will be using headus mainly for that.

Gonna start the gun mount and underside next week.

[bullet1968]

Wow characters too!!! woo hoo cant wait to see this mate!!! I assumne a battle scene or similar??

mmmmm gun mount...drool LOL

cheers bullet

Just a thought...instead of the usual desert scene try an urban or even forest?? might be a change

[leonlabyk]

Unfortunately I cannot share to much of this as it is work related. I am able to show the hummer as they can be seen anywhere. Unfortunately it is gonna be a desert scene as that is what is required. I have attached one of the early images I created which shows a load of primitives where I have now put a small town although the scene now has a lot more depth.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/LeeTerainV5.png

[bullet1968]

bummer for the hummer LOL oh well it al does look neato man....good luck with it for work..LOL I thought it may have been private...never mind...texture time will tell on the beast!

cheers bullet

[daverave]

Nice work leonlabyk, could you do a shot of the wheels...........thanks dave

[Acid44]

That's some astonishing work man O_O

Is the desert landscape all done in maya?

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Guys, The landscape is done in vue although I will be setting up a scene in vue of yellowstone park in my wolf wip that is in the wip section. Should help show how I use maya, zbrush and vue together in my workflow and how to create landscapes from google map refs relatively quickly. Hope to be getting back to that in a couple of weeks and hope that some of the stuff I post may be of use.

I will get some pics of the tires up later today tomorrow although I may redo them as they did not come out great and need to get some more detail in there.

This tutorial pretty much shows how to do it though.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=md8E3mm8ge0

Cheers

[ben hobden]

leon, where did you learn how to use vue? i have the 3d artist user guide and another book off amazon. have you found any good reference places other than cornucopia and geek at play etc?

[bullet1968]

I tried using the lanscape thing mate...couldnt get it to work?? I used pulldts after installing python script....couldnt get oit to work so I am VERY interested mate..if you have time one day? Being a Surveyor this COULD be something I could use at work as well.

cheer bullet

[leonlabyk]

Just learned vue from geek at play and messing around myself. I found the best way to create a terrain was to pull an image from google maps of the area I was wanting to recreate. I then convert this to a grayscale image and use photoshop to lessen black and white areas such as roads and buildings. I then use this image as an alpha brush in zbrush and project it onto a flat poly plane that has been subdivide a shed load. ( I will give an exact amount at a later date where I will try to go into more detail.) with the image projected onto the plane I use the layer brush on a low setting to raise the area. I can then use ref images to sculpt the look of the area inside zbrush as I now have a good template to work from. Once I am happy I can take the model into Vue and begin setting up materials and eco systems. I also try to keep roads and buildings in my alpha as I can now see faintly where they are on the model. This enables me to put the buildings and roads exactly where they should be inside Maya. This is a rough guide to my workflow on this although I will go into more detail on my other thread when I get the chance.

Below is a project I worked on some time ago. The area is in Norway and it was to promote the company's hydro power technology. Unfortunately I could not render out the full animation in time for them where the camera starts above the clouds and then goes across the landscape before moving underwater showing there technology. I am waiting on work to get a new version of vue in the next few weeks and will then hopefully render the full video as I need to be able to use vue in along with maya 2011. Also the render times on this are not terrible and are around 5 mins a frame at 720p. This is on a high end hp machine though as Vue does require a lot of processor power and ram.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed.jpg

Not sure if my method will work for surveying as it is not 100 percent accurate and is more of a close representation of an area but hope it may be of use to you.

Cheers

[bullet1968]

That is nice mate...I like it! Nah not so much for accurate stuff...more to represent what the client perceives as his land etc.


Check this out mate....it may interest you. I believe you would be able to ose the PULLSDTS program by putting the heights in by hand and tricking the program.

cheers bullet


http://www.creativecrash.com/tutorials/digital-elevation-model-dem-terrain-displacement#tabs

[bullet1968]

BTW mate...I couldnt get the program to run as per the other guys in the thread, I dont know programming so I gave up.

[ben hobden]

Cheers for breaking that down leon, I hadnt conidered exporting zbrush geometry to vue. Still early days in my study of the program, only rendered two things out so far, one of which is at the end of my matte painting thread. I shall keep an eye out for your yellowstone thread.

Congratulations by the way on the job. I remember way back when you were in the process of looking... A process I shall be starting myself soon. May pm you to get some ideas on where/how to go about it.

[leonlabyk]

Ok been working on a load of character riggs but finally got the modeling of this beast done. Will begin texturing soon.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Hmvcopy.png

Cheers Ben, mainly worked freelance for a couple of years but was close to quiting 3d as a career due to clients. Thankfully I finally now have a job and hope that the work I complete over the next 2 years will get me to where I hope to be.

[leonlabyk]

Another model I have been working on. Found a great script that allowed me to put the feathers on in know time. Still need to texture what lies under the feathers.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Falcon.jpg

[bullet1968]

DIG the falcon dude!! wow that is nice...the hummer looks pretty cool now it is an environment of sorts..cant wait for the texture!

cheers bullet

[stwert]

Great work on both! Love it. I can see a bit of sky through the feathers on the left wing though.

[murambi]

i love the hummer greatwork

[leonlabyk]

Cheers guys,

Does anyone know how I can rig a bird wing so all of the feathers collapse in. From what I have found on the net it seems to be a tricky one, and being that I want to create a true representation I will probably need to hire someone to do the rigging for me. Please let me know if any of you have any tips or experience in this field.

[gster123]

I would look into a set driven key, so when the wings fold the feathers rotate, use the joint rotation as teh driver and the feathers as the driven.

Great work so far.

[Aurorap]

That's awesome. I love all the details. Can't wait to see the texture. Cheers

[honestdom]

i think if you want a true representation, you should think about doing some fur/hair system.
I know the rigging on the duck in cadburys spots versus srtipes commercial was pretty tricky. that duck had a fur and hair system i believe. There were a few polygon feathers but not many.

i think the duck was rigged in a couple of different ways to try things out. sorry not sure about rigging things.

[leonlabyk]

Will have an update on the Falcon in a week or so. Decided to get a pro to rig it as I was going round in circles and not really getting anywhere near the results I wanted. Hopefully I will be able to work out the method to do it for future work as he is screen capturing the whole thing. I am currently setting up a black hawk and here is how things are at the mo.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Hawk.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Wire

[daverave]

Nice modelling.............dave

[ben hobden]

Really like the helicopter Leon. Im working on one myself at the moment, a hind.

Had a question for you.

Have you imported objs from Maya much into Vue. Do you have problems when you do so? (Geometry breaking, textures etc)

[leonlabyk]

Cheers guys,

Have not really had much trouble with importing obj's into vue. That said the best way is to use vue xstream. This way you can set up your ecosystems, materials etc for your scene in Vue. Then with Vue on your maya shelf you can open up the scene into maya. This basically enables you to have all of your maya models textures etc working within Maya.
There is a scale problem though, if you set up your scene in maya and then export the terrain into Vue, when you import this back into Maya the terrain will now be 50x larger I think. It all depends on how you go about setting up your terrains though. I prefer to create the terrain in zbrush as showed in the wolf thread in the wip section. If I import the obj into Maya and begin setting up the scene with models animation etc I will run into a scaling problem when exporting and importing the landscape to and from vue. It is easy to avoid as you simply take the terrain into vue 1st off. You can either begin work in vue or export the terrain as an obj. When opened in Maya the scale will be correct on this allowing you to begin animation, adding models etc as you can then delete the exported obj and open in the finished vue landscape once complete. I am not 100 percent on this though as I am still testing it on this hummer wip and the wolf one. I did complete a project where I set up a golden falcon and camera animation which I wanted to render with Vue but it was a bit of a headache and am hoping x stream will work out better. With that method I had to export the falcon with a geometry cache which was not to difficult but getting the camera animation into vue was much trickier. I cannot remember the exact method off the top of my head but if you need it let me know and I can give a run down of what I did.
Hope that helps and good luck with the hind, you got it on the site as it would be great to see.

[ben hobden]

Havnt posted it yet. Ive been having some problems with it - as Im box modelling it im having trouble with edge looping and getting the right balance between hard edges and parts where there are round shapes, and the structure that holds the cockpit windows isnt very good and Im thinking of redoing this part.


My confidence in modelling had gone up a notch recently and now this has knocked me back a little bit again. It is supposed to be a partcular Hind, but Im tempted now to simply 'base it' on the Hind, and model it out my own way. I will start up a wip thread soon.

Re: the xstream. I have Vue 8.5 Infinite and dont have the Xstream plug in. Ive only tried exporting a couple of objs to Vue from Maya, but they have distorted quite badly. I guess it's poor construction in Maya rather than the Vue's fault. I think the objects I exported were some buildings from a matte painting I did, the meshes were pretty crude/rudimentary.

[ben hobden]

Originally posted by ben hobden
Havnt posted it yet. Ive been having some problems with it - as Im box modelling it im having trouble with edge looping and getting the right balance between hard edges and parts where there are round shapes, and the structure that holds the cockpit windows isnt very good and Im thinking of redoing this part.


My confidence in modelling had gone up a notch recently and now this has knocked me back a little bit again. It is supposed to be a partcular Hind, but Im tempted now to simply 'base it' on the Hind, and model it out my own way. I will start up a wip thread soon.

Re: the xstream. I have Vue 8.5 Infinite and dont have the Xstream plug in. Ive only tried exporting a couple of objs to Vue from Maya, but they have distorted quite badly. I guess it's poor construction in Maya rather than the Vue's fault. I think the objects I exported were some buildings from a matte painting I did, the meshes were pretty crude/rudimentary.

edit: posting now in wip

[daverave]

Hi leonlabyk
Do you do any hard edge modelling with out using the 3 button?, just a question..............dave

[leonlabyk]

Good point dave, when I am modeling stuff that is mainly hard edges I will only use the 3 key later on in the process. The main trick is to make sure that when you are modeling the base mesh you keep in mind where the edge loops will be so they flow along and around the mesh.

[leonlabyk]

Made some more progress on this and hope have the modeling finished up tomorrow evening.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawk2.jpg

[daverave]

Thats realy nice, hope the texturing will be as good that would look great, is this going to be a animation..............dave

[bullet1968]

WOW man.....thats a bloody ripper model mate!!!! I agree with dave..this will look s**t hot when its painted!!!!!! good job mate

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

Cheers guys, Yeah the plan is to set up some animation with this over the sea. Modeled a load of ct guys with dive gear and will have them jumping out. They are all rigged and ready to go once I get the textures set up. Also looks like I will be able to post some of the animation work I am doing up here as I am allowed to put certain parts in my portfolio once complete. Once this beast is done I will then be going over everything to set up textures and will post progress as I go.
The hope is to get all of this stuff looking as close to real as possible.

Thanks again for the kind words, much appreciated.

[ben hobden]

That looks cool Leon. It's wierd, this should have almost been the current SM challenge as Im gonna (try) and animate mine too. No humans though. Just a take-off or something, following the apache animation tutorial on here.

I like your renders of this by the way, the indigos and blacks in the shadows. They're really rich and the contrast really helps show the model well. Looking forward to seeing how this comes along.

[paldav]

That black hawk is amazing!

I modelled one some time ago and had a right old time with the engines, absolutely superb mate!

Can i ask you...please please please, how did you set up that amazing render ??????

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Guys,

At work at the mo but almost finished and should have some final renders of the modeling side this evening. The setup simply involves using maya's physical sun on this Paldav. As long as you are rendering with mental rray you should find an option for creating this in the render settings. I am using Maya 2011 so all of the conections are automatically set up but not sure if this is the case on pre 8.5 maya. Let me know how you go and will do my best to explain further if you need it.

[leonlabyk]

Ok still more to do but is mostly complete. Always the final details that seem to take the most time.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/1b.png

[leonlabyk]

Larger version

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/1a-1.png

[daverave]

I think this is one of the best models I have seen on this forum.............dave

[leonlabyk]

Wow that is quite a statement Dave. Much appreciated, but do not think it is that good as I have seen many models that exceed this in here. Glad you like it though and hope I can get the textures to a very high standard as that is what will really make this and the hummer pop. Also the soldiers should look great as am gonna be using proper light set ups at work. This will enable me to get all of the ref shots without any shadows allowing me to zproject the textures very quickly. All of this will be shot on a cannon 5D, allowing me to get mega high res pics for the texture process. Will upload some of the soldier stuff and weapons in the next day or so.

[leonlabyk]

Ok here is a render from 1 of the shots in a short piece of animation I have been putting together. Unfortunately none of the stuff in this animation is going to be textured and just uses simple materials as I needed to put something together. looks ok as I set everything at night so there is also a lot of night vision which helps hide the lack of texturing. Will add more once complete along with wires etc.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/CMCapture1copy.png

[leonlabyk]

Also any of you guys got killer skills with shave and haircut. Am trying to set up the body feathers with it as I feel they will move and interact a lot better, although they are currently looking rubbish. I tried plugging a texture map from the body into it but it did not have the desired effect. I really need to be able to select a area of feathers and plug a texture into the feathers in that area. I could then work this across the entire body, but am not sure how or if there is a way to go about this.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Falco.png

If anyone could give any advice it would be much appreciated.

Cheers

[bullet1968]

Mate the only advice I can give..........DONT STOP. That chopper is bloody awesome and is certainly in the top 5 from what I have seen since joining SM.

The soldier etc are just plain shit hot man...I mean that....fantastic work.

cheers bullet

[daverave]

Lovely work Leon, I was thinking of your problem and thought of ncloth looked on the net and found this dont know if this is what you are after......................dave

Edit:When I get some time I will try and make a tank track with ncloth as a test


http://vimeo.com/7221901

[leonlabyk]

Ok will post the 1 min animation in 2 weeks time as I have just finished some other shots that were needed which are now rendering. For the bird the wings are all set up and rigged as I got a freelancer to assist with this and he kindly captured the whole process from start to finish so I will hopefully have a good understanding of the ins and outs of it. Also got mb feather for xsi and am going to use this when I get back in the office to set up the body and smaller wing feathers.

In the mean time I started working on a chinook. Here are some wires and what not so far.

[leonlabyk]

wire

[leonlabyk]

Rotor Wire

[leonlabyk]

Rotor wire 1

[leonlabyk]

Front Wheel

[leonlabyk]

Quick render, sorry it is a bit blown out but gives an idea. I will be creating the full interior for this also as well as a lot of details on the exterior that will hopefully get this looking as good as the black hawk.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/chin.jpg

[ben hobden]

Ah, missed the last few posts in this thread. Looking great Leon. Im really eager to see some of the animations.

edit: I was discussing with my Dad about the spindle on my Hind that you said could maybe do with some more detail, and we got to talking about the Chinook, and how incredible it is how the rotor blades intersect each others arc of rotation.

edit2: You're good with AFX arn't you Leon... is the rain in the still from the night time soldier animation from AFX. I was flicking through and having a play with some of the presets in there, the rain, smoke, lightning, raindrops...etc.

[bullet1968]

Bugger me you dont muck around Leon!!!! mate that is good.....I think I have worked out the background...still cant replicate the clay look though on the model. Just discovered (curious) physical sun etc and mucked around with the properties...nice effect eh?

Mate keep it up...I know where to come if I want a chopper done now!!

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Ben, The animation I will be putting up is not great as there are no textures etc as mentioned + a lot is key framed which I kinda suck at. We are getting a full optitrack system at our work place though which will enable us to do full body animation with motion builder and facial animation with face robot. This will be up and running by mid Jan so I am hoping to have all the vehicles and characters textured to a very high standard by then so we can create some killer stuff. Got a lot of work to do but hopefully the final results will be worth it and am really looking forward to having some cool kit to work with.

[daverave]

Nice model again Leon are you going to do any AFVs.............dave

[leonlabyk]

No plans for any yet Dave but will keep you posted.

Here are some wire of other bits and bobs.

[ben hobden]

Originally posted by leonlabyk
Cheers Ben, The animation I will be putting up is not great as there are no textures etc as mentioned + a lot is key framed which I kinda suck at. We are getting a full optitrack system at our work place though which will enable us to do full body animation with motion builder and facial animation with face robot. This will be up and running by mid Jan so I am hoping to have all the vehicles and characters textured to a very high standard by then so we can create some killer stuff. Got a lot of work to do but hopefully the final results will be worth it and am really looking forward to having some cool kit to work with.

:). That sounds super cool.

P.s, I'm a beginner with animation myself, so you'll get no eye-browing from me there. Roll on January

[leonlabyk]

CT mask Wire

[leonlabyk]

Armor wire

[leonlabyk]

Face Wire

[leonlabyk]

Boots Wire

[leonlabyk]

Weapons Wire

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Bullet,

I just use a lambert shader to get the clay look. Also make sure final gather is on and think you might also need caustics and gi checked.

Cheers for the kind words guys much appreciated, long way to go and hope that the final stuff is as good as I am aiming for.

[leonlabyk]

Just read your edit Ben,
by AFX I assume you mean after effects in which case the rain was added by our compositor with fusion using some stock footage. Also added some lightning in a couple of the shots to try and make things look more epic. Will try to go into more detail about the methods he used once I get the animation up as it will not make much sense without seeing it. Have started to realize though how imperative compositing packages such as after effects and fusion are though if you want to create great work. Also the main passes that we use are z depth pass, shadow pass, object normal pass, beauty pass and then often render out objects in solid color so they can be manipulated easily.

As said I will try to go into more detail on this when I get the final renders.

[ben hobden]

Originally posted by leonlabyk
Just read your edit Ben,
by AFX I assume you mean after effects in which case the rain was added by our compositor with fusion using some stock footage. Also added some lightning in a couple of the shots to try and make things look more epic. Will try to go into more detail about the methods he used once I get the animation up as it will not make much sense without seeing it. Have started to realize though how imperative compositing packages such as after effects and fusion are though if you want to create great work. Also the main passes that we use are z depth pass, shadow pass, object normal pass, beauty pass and then often render out objects in solid color so they can be manipulated easily.

As said I will try to go into more detail on this when I get the final renders.

Ah right. And yeah, agreed. I dont know too much about after effects, or compositing, but am getting more familiar with AFX and am learning Nuke aswell, and yeah, for some types of work...essential.

And also, yeah, the solid 'matte' object pass seems to be a staple of all the compositing style tutorials and reading I have been doing.

[leonlabyk]

Some more progress on the Chinook.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Nook1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Nook1a.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Nook2.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Nook3.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Nook4.jpg

[bullet1968]

If I EVER get that good....I know I have died.

Very nice model leon...really bloody impressed mate.

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

HAHAHA cheers bullet.

Makes life a lot easier when you get paid to do this stuff and are then able to put in a lot of hours. Hope to the exterior finished later today and can then move onto creating the interior.

Thanks again matey, really appreciate the kind words.

[ben hobden]

What settings do you adjust when you set up physical sun/sky Leon? Really like the renders.

[leonlabyk]

Hi Ben,

These are straight off the bat but the settings to change are in the hypershade under utilities

Mia exposure and the gamma value is a crucial one

There should be a load of documentation on this in the maya help files if you are really stuck.

[bullet1968]

Bahahaha no worries mate....they are sincere words I might add. Yeh it would be nice to do it for a living...sadly my 3D are roads, pipes etc etc LOL...not as much fun I can tell you.

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

Done some more work on the exterior and started on the interior. Just a few small details still to add to the exterior.
Hell of a lot of work to do on the interior, is going to require a lot of extra modeling. Think it will look a lot better once there are people and clutter such as bags, ropes and what not on the chairs and walls.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/exterior.png

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/interior.png

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Interior1.png

[bullet1968]

wow mate that is lookning bloody good...lots of detail!!

cheers bullet

[daverave]

realy nice leon, love to see these textured...............dave

[mastone]

looks good:beer:

[leonlabyk]

I have uv'd the outer shell and have created a diffuse and specular map although I need to get a decent hdr in order to get the specular working.

All the rivets are created with zbrush and are a normal map.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/chinookRender.png

Thanks again for the kind words guys, much appreciated.

[leonlabyk]

Hey guys,

I have laid out the uv's for most of the interior now and will post a render of it once I finish texturing the floor and metalic parts.

I wonder if any of you can offer any advice with regards to setting up the shaders for these though. In the image below I textured the engine and tried setting up a shader for it but it sucks. I really need to get a brushed metal look and the texture needs to be plugged into a shader that will allow me to achieve this. If anyone can offer any advice with regards to creating metal shaders it would be much appreciated.

Cheers,

Leon

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Exterior-1.png

[daverave]

Have you got a picture of the part you need the texture for...........dave

[leonlabyk]

Hi Dave it is the engine that lies below the rear rotor. Really not sure how to go about setting up a shader for this. I have created a texture map but need a shader to help give a brushed metalic look. If you can give any advice it would be greatly appreciated.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/NewExterior.png

[ben hobden]

Is there not a 'brushed copper' material of Davids in the downloads section on here? Perhaps that could give you some ideas?

[leonlabyk]

Done some more work on the interior with the back, hope to get a load more of this textured today though. I tried out davids brushed copper and think the problem is with maya physical sun so am going to move away from it while I set up the textures. The final animated renders will be done using vue with mental ray though.

Just a render with it in a scene of sorts, I will set up a afternoon render once I get some more textured.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chiner-1.jpg

[bullet1968]

wow you have certainly done some work on this Leon...impressive mate! If this is going to be animated...Im going to drown in envy man....

cheers bullet

[paldav]

The modelling you have done on this i find very impressive.

Moving from the rough blocked out shape and overall dimensions into the details is normaly where i hit stormy waters.

I thnk that the rough surface and the spec dont do it justice though, personally i would like to see it smoother, some of the rivets are being lost.

Would these be a good candidate for displacement?

:bow:

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Paldav,

I am with you on the exterior and am still going to be making some tweaks and adjustments to this. The texture still needs more depth and the normals certainly need more work. I am not a fan of rendering displacement maps with maya especially as I will be animating these vehicles so normals are a much safer option.

There are a lot of details such as grills and vents which I still need to add to the exterior which will be done through textures, alphas and normal maps.

Thanks for your thoughts though and hope that the exterior on the final version will have a lot more detail and depth

[leonlabyk]

Progress

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook1.jpg

[leonlabyk]

1st off, great work on the site, it is looking very pro, not that it did not before but you have all done a great job on the new design and layout. Killer work

Some more renders and wires of the CH-47

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook1-1.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook2.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook3.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook4.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook5.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Wire1-1.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Wire3.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Wire4.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Wire5.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Wire6.jpg

[daverave]

Nice work Leon........dave

[paldav]

am i still allowed to say.... awsome!

Love the renders!

[Jay]

Fantastic work mate, really really good stuff.

Jay

[leonlabyk]

Thanks for the kind words guys, much appreciated.
I am now back in the UK for a month and will be getting a new comp in the next few days. I will then be able to get back to uv'ing and texturing these beasts and will hopefully have them finished or close to when I leave.
Hope you are all enjoying this festive time of the year and should have some progress soon.

Cheers,
Leon

[leonlabyk]

Well did not get anything done in the UK as I gave myself a break from the screen.

Am now back on it and here is the chinook 90% complete and a character I am working on although it only has a very basic texture plugged in at the moment.

Also some face tests in Face robot which is still in need of tweaking as well as working out where I need to plug the stress and wrinkle maps. Have our motion capture set up now though and am looking forward to plugging it into all of the characters.

Face Robot Test on Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/19055853)

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Zayed.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/ZED1.jpg

[bullet1968]

Really nice work mate...that chinook is just bloody nice!!

cheers bullet

[Nomeni88]

Yea, I really like the Chinook :)
Really keep this going on :D

[daverave]

Lovely work as always, I think the arabs beard and eye braws could do with a little thinning out..........dave

Edit:face robot looks cool does it take long to learn

[ben hobden]

your stuff just gets better and better Leon.

[mastone]

Looks great, there are some tweaks to be made though which you have probably seen.
Just take a look at this one:
http://www.qinetiq.com/home/newsroom/news_releases_homepage/2009/3rd_quarter/chinook_reversion.Par.36890.File.tmp/Chinook%20Mk3%20test%20flight.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Cheers for the kind words guys, really appreciate it. I have uvd a large amount of the black hawk and some of the hummer and will begin texturing these in the next few days.

Daverdave
With regards to the beard and brows I agree and is an easy fix as it just means making some adjustments to the hair which is set up with shave and haircut.
I was shocked with the ease of use with regards to face robot. My workmate got a load of tutes off a wiki which I will post the link to when I see him tomorrow. I earlier learned how you can plug in a sound wav file and text type the recording in order to have your character talk. It is not the greatest lip synch animation ever but is very good for a quick result. Am gonna set up some motion capture in the next few hours and get that on the face as this is what it is designed for.
I will upload videos of both tests so you guys can check the results in the next couple of days. If you want to do facial animation I would certainly advise giving it a look though as you can get good results very quickly. Also if you have any experience with rigging and weight painting it will also help you with regards to the basic workflow.
The big problem is getting the animated face back onto your rigged model in Maya and this is gonna be where I am gonna have to do some problem solving. The quick option is to keep the head separate from the body but i am going to see if I can find a better way and if so will post my workflow here.
If any of you guys try to use it and run into any probs or could use some capture just let me know and I will do my best to help.

Cheers,

Leon

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Mastone, yeah still need to add some more details to the texture map and model but is nearly there. Am mainly working on the face robot stuff at the mo but will get back to finishing the models up very soon.

Cheers,

Leon

[ben hobden]

re: the render of the face. Really nice grain and soft light feel. How was this done? Also, I guess you used Zbrush for the skin creases and wrinkles...is that normal mapped?

[leonlabyk]

Hi ben,
Sorry I should of said, I took the render into PS and used a film grain filter on it and for the skin, yeah you guessed it I took it into zbrush and generated a normal map.
I am not happy with the texture on the face at the moment as it is very basic and will do something much better before rendering anything final. I probably will use a similar filter though to help with the overall look though.

[leonlabyk]

Sorry for the late reply guys

I found all of the vids and info I needed for face robot here:
http://facerobot.wiki.softimage.com/index.php/Main_Page

Made some progress on the Hummer and hope to have the interior UVd and textured this coming Sunday.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Hummer3.png

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Hummer2-1.png

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Hummer1.png

[bullet1968]

Looking like the real deal mate....cant wait for the ending!

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

Ok think this is nearly done now. I realized I need to model + texture the indicator lights, exhaust pipe, rear lights and side mirrors so will do those at some point soon as I will then be able to call the hummer finished.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Wire.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Profiles.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Done some more work on the characters. I have 3 variants with a CT guy, soldier and paratrooper. I still need to uv and texture a few areas on the others but will post them once complete. I have also uv'd the M-4, M-16 and M-60 and hope to get some ref images for texturing soon. I am at a big conference with work and should be able to get a load of texture ref for the black hawk and also get inside the ch-47 which will enable me to finish up the cockpit.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/SkyDiver1.jpg

[bullet1968]

Wow thats cool mate...you also must have a bloody good job!!! swap you for a week??

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

haha cheers Bullet, am very fortunate to be getting paid to do something I enjoy. Sorry there have been no updates on this for a while but have been doing a lot of testing lately with getting facial capture back into Maya and perfecting setting up the heads in face robot. Finally got everything sussed and working good without having any trouble impoting the captures back into Maya and onto the rig.

This is the main reason I am posting as I am not sure f this will be interest to others of you out there. Discovered an app called point oven which is 100usd. It allows you to import mdd files which are files that have keyframes set to the vertex information or something of the like. With point oven I am also able to create mdd files as it bakes the motion capture files or key framed animation in Maya.
Have never been able to get rigged characters into other apps in the past without running into issues with weights etc. Was usually able to get into 3ds max but with cinema, lightwave and others I would often run into problems. Have been able to get these mdd files into any app that already reads them or has a plug in for this without any problems though.
I know most people/companies tend to use one app as it is often a bag of worms when you start introducing other software. This is just very useful as one of my workmates can now set up dust, fire and cloth simulations in cinema as he can get much better and more realistic results than I can achieve in Maya.
Not sure if this will be of interest to anyone but if so hope it helps.
Also just need to model/texture the controls for the chinook so with any luck it will be finished today. Have also started on a C-130 and the exterior is complete and has an empty interior at the mo. I will try and get some renders up in the next day or so.

Cheers,

Leon

[leonlabyk]

couple of renders with messing around with AE. Prob a bit overkill but gives an idea. Will try to get some shots of the c-130 up tomorrow.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Soldier.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook-2.jpg


Cheers,

Leon

[leonlabyk]

Some texture progress on the soldier + some wires and un textured views of the C-130. Hope to have the rest of the soldier textured later today along with the para. Will post some renders and wires when done.

Cheers

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed-1.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130Color.jpg
http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130Color1.jpg

[bullet1968]

wow mate...thats a really impressive bunch of models mate!!! I can see a lot of work involved!!

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

Some more progress, need to texture up the hand + model and texture some gloves.

Yeah is taking time to get all this finished up but hope it will all be worth it in the end Bullet.

Cheers

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed-2.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Just a few more bits to model but everything so far is UVd. No need for the cockpit on this one and will just be the main interior/exterior

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C_130a-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130c.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C_130.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C_130b.jpg

[honestdom]

looks great, (apart from the vignette, its just not my cup of tea. don't see the point.) :P
the models are really detailed... what are they for?

not keen on the sky dive guy, he is really soft and the clothes look baggy, despite falling through the air.

[leonlabyk]

Cheers,

Yeah the vignette is prob a bit overkill especially for a wip image. I should really keep this stuff crisp and simple though so people can see the overall model and point out any probs or mistakes.

All of this is going to be used to create a short animation about 3-5 mins in length.

The sky diver is just stuck in a pose and rendered out, was just done as a test. The final v will have dynamic cloth which one of our workmates is setting up in cinema as the cloth simulator is pretty epic. The final renders should look a lot better though as it has no motion at the moment and does look way to baggy and static.

Cheers,

Leon

[leonlabyk]

Some more weapons I am working on. The sig is done and I am currently working on the browning 50 cal also need to work on the rocket for the rpg some more. Will try and get some wires up later once I have finished the modeling on the 50 cal.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/RPG1.png

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/RPG2.png

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/SIG1.png

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BROWNING1.png

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BROWNING2.png

[paldav]

Please..Get some sleep!!

No no dont!

[daverave]

You might find this link helpful for the 50cal, its only the barral that has changed on the newer ones..........looking great.........dave

http://www.pt103.com/PT_Boat_Components_Browning_50_Cal_M2_Aircraft.htm l

[leonlabyk]

The Bowning is pretty much done with just a few bit to add and some tweaks. The M-82 is very low at the moment but think it might work out fine with some good texturing as it is not the most detailed weapon.

Cheers for the ref daverave it was a great help. Could probably still use some work on the proportions but my eyes are a bit tired now so am gonna take Paldav up on that sleep. Will get wires up for this stuff tomorrow.

Thanks for the kind words it is much appreciated.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-82_1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-82_2.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Browning_50cal_1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Browning_50cal_2.jpg

[leonlabyk]

got the sig set up. Browning is now uvd so am going to start work on the textures today. The blackhawk is uvd and one of my workmates has textured both the rotors. He Hopes to have it finished around the end of next week and will then upload some renders.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/SIGWire1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/SIGWire2.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/SIG3.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/SIG2.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/SIG1-1.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Been working on skin set ups but am thinking maya and sss for rendering is going to be a bag of worms. Am currently trying to use cinema4d with vray and the sss2 shader as I think we will have much faster render times and there will not be as many issues with the lighting as we will face in maya. Not to mention the fact I am able to get much better results for short hair systems with cinema than what I get in Maya. I just wish I new maya better but fortunately the guy I work with knows cinema inside out.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/colli.png

[daverave]

Hi Leon
Not sure that I like the hair might need thinning out a bit or it could be that its not casting a shadow. The lips look great..........dave

[honestdom]

the character is a bit dark, its a shame your not trying sss in mental ray. its pretty straight forward tbh.
i think for the gun some dirt and texture variation would make it look a lot better.

[daverave]

Sorry Leon
I am not trying to put the boot in but looking at the gun you have the metal texture going the same way I think in the real world guns are polished in different direction what is cheapest for the manufacturer, and may be some bump on the corser polish......dave

[leonlabyk]

Cheers guys,

Think you are right Dave and will try and adjust it when I get a chance, is any easy fix as I just need to adjust the direction on that layer. I will upload a cinema render once I get the skin working out as I have been able to get the hair looking so much better already having run a few tests.

Cheers Honestdom, I will try and break up the texture some more, we are not wanting to much dirt etc as we wanted to keep the weapons looking relatively new. I think the texture could do with some more breaking up though and appreciate your thoughts. With regards to the skin I find it easy to set stuff up for single frames but find it to be a nightmare when it comes to using a character in a scene. For instance say I have a character sitting in a black hawk with all of the lights set up I will need to set the skin up for this shot, he then repels down a rope and the shot is lit from the sun so I need to re set up again. Also it is sometimes the case that the texture needs to be changed for different lighting and so I think it will cause problems. The other possibility is rendering everything in zbrush as you can now import mdd's although I would need to look into importing camera animation. Advantage of this would be the fast render times but the hair would be an issue.
Mainly just doing some research to find a solid method to get what we want done in a timely manner while still getting solid results. I know it can all be done in maya but know it is a lot of work and it would all fall on me as I am the only one who uses it. Advantage of using cinema would be it is very easy to learn + I would then have someone else help who knows it inside out.
Hopefully we will have a solid approach to this by the end of next week.

Cheers,

Leon

[leonlabyk]

My work mate is busy with setting up the skin so I have come back to finish up this beast. I will add all of the bolts and rivets as a displacement map once I get all of the textures finished up on the exterior. All the textures are very flat at the moment as there is just a color map on a lambert shader.
I really appreciate the comments and your criticism on this guys and will do my best to make adjustments and improvements in the suggested areas. It has all been noted and time provided I will go back to make improvements. I am likely to go back and re work on the hummer 1st as I feel it still looks very weak and will get some more ref images at work to try and improve things. I then need to add texture details to the chinook before then looking over weapons and finalizing character textures.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawk1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawk2.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawk3.jpg

[daverave]

Thats Looking sweet Leon...........dave

Edit:I think the texture on the hummer was not write

[paldav]

Beutifull ! just a few more scratches please.

[ben hobden]

Looking good Leon....a few decals and insignias wouldn't go amiss? Any thoughts on what type of shader you will end up using? Blinn, mia mat etc? Spec? Reflection?

I think the matte finish of the lambert looks quite good. When I made that Hind helicopter, I was making it thinking, 'well, it's made of metal so I guess it needs a kind of specular material', but unless these choppers are stright out of the factory, they're not really reflective or shiny, are they? When I see helicopters like this I think of 70's/80's vietnam war movies. When I think of the helicopters in them I never think of them as being very shiny.

[leonlabyk]

Yeah Paldav I will try and dirty things up a bit once I get all of the rivets, insignias done and am happy with the overall texture of the exterior. The scratches will prob be kept to a minimum and will just put them in the most exposed and likely areas door rims, window rims, undercarriage etc.

Cheers Ben, yeah these vehicles are very flat. Got the opportunity to go up in one of these the other day and was quite an experience. They are a lot more maneuverable than I would of expected. Hope to have the texture close to finished on the exterior soon and will upload then.

Cheers,

Leon

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawk1-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawk2-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawk3-1.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Some more progress,

Is still going to need some work on the exterior textures but am going to move onto the hummer and come back to this as I need to stop looking at it for a few days.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawkScreenshot.jpg

[ben hobden]

That looks brilliant Leon. Have you made that scenery in Vue?

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Ben, and no it is just comped into a still to present it better. I did consider a scene along these lines but we just do not have the render power to pull it off. We will instead be going with a urban city scene like Somalia in black hawk down. Once I get all of these models finished up and textured I will be moving onto the city stuff.

Cheers,

Leon

[bullet1968]

bit of tweaking on the lighting on that jungle scene Leon and that would look just perfect...almost Predator in the first scenes!! well done so far mate

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

Got a fair bit of the Browning textured, will still need to tweak some more and remove the seams in either mudbox or bodypaint but is getting there.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Gun1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Gun.jpg

[leonlabyk]

RPG-7 progress

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/RPG1-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/RPG2-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/RPG3.jpg

[bullet1968]

Looks like some nice texturing there mate...I like the worn metal you have...looks good.

cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Bullet,

Trying to improve the textures on the characters and clothing as it was a bit to basic before. Almost finished the boot and just need to work out the best method to add the stitching.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/boot.jpg

[bullet1968]

for me do a slight sphere warp then a small motion or gaussian blur on the boot...at the moment all I see is noise, even for a suede look I think it needs a blur...other than that all is good

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Bullet,

Will give that I try when I get a mo, just gone back to the sig to make improvements 1st.

[leonlabyk]

Some progress on the m-60 texture, still need to texture the bullet and make some adjustments. Not sure if it is a bit to battered also but these tend to take a bit more of a beating.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-60a1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-60b1.jpg

[bullet1968]

Actually mate thats not bloody bad!!!...I can see some tme spent there LOL...keep it up man...
cheers bullet

[Forlan]

Hey thanks for all the tutorial . . . !!!

[leonlabyk]

Finished up the texture on the m-60 for now and got a video game style render. Have now moved back to the black hawk and got the seats textured, once the main interior is finished I will just have the pilot seats and cockpit area to uv and texture.

Will upload some more renders of the black hawk once it is finished up.

Cheers,

Leon

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M601.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M602.jpg

[bullet1968]

Nice bullet...from Bullet...LOL...I wouldnt have put the gun on a dark background though mate...kinda takes away the hard work you did on the textures..which are superb

[mastone]

Looks pretty good ;P

[leonlabyk]

Almost done, just need to uv and texture the headset and walkie talkie. Will get some renders of the walkie which is around the back once I get everything finished up.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/4a.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/1a.jpg

[daverave]

Nice maybe a little to clean.............dave

[leonlabyk]

Back from vacation and just got back to this,

think you are right Dave and will add some dirt and grub to the texture once we begin animating as I will have a better idea of terrain etc.

Will get some other renders up shortly.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/soldier1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/soldier-1.jpg

[leonlabyk]

rough render of the walkie

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/walkie.jpg

[murambi]

very very cool work

[daverave]

I think the cloth is lacking a fabric bump and spec texture looks to flat apart from that it looks great.............dave

[bullet1968]

Is it just my screen Leon? or is there some UV stretching on the chest area about where the dog tags would sit...and just below it as well. 2 way looks good mate...all round pretty damn good.

cheers bullet

[hn_vns1]

i waana know how to download friday free tutorials and how to make community

[hn_vns1]

help me in thish web site how to download free tutorials:giggle:

[bullet1968]

hn...go to the main homepage...then training...then to free tutorials...good luck. You can then navigate to all forums as well...this will get you in a great community....have fun :)

[leonlabyk]

Cheers guys,
It has a normal map but may need to increase it, was told to put no specular on the clothing so will stay as it is for now, there is some stretching on the uv though and I will fix this up.

Here is a render with the m-82, have since finished texturing the black hawk interior and have also finish the pilot helmets. Am currently working on the mini gun and hope to have an update at the end of the week.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Sniper1.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Ok here is the black hawk pilot, I have also made the gunner version but need to texture the mask area. I have finished the mini gun but still need to uv and texture. I hope to have a render of the gunner on the mini gun all textured with a set of marines in the black hawk sometime soon. Also I have made some progress on a new version of the M-4. I did not like the earlier version as it was missing a lot of important stuff and is going to be used heavily in shots. The new version is much more exact and has all the parts modeled correctly and separately. Most of the hard work is done on the modeling but there is still a bit to do.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/pilot.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/pilot1.jpg

[ben hobden]

whats the polycount of these figures Leon? Body/clothes/props....all in?

[leonlabyk]

The Marine is 282916 faces. I have a low poly for animation and this is about 20,000 faces. Here are some renders of the M-4 so far.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-4e.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-4d.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-4c.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-4a.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-4b.jpg

[ben hobden]

Thats 20,000 for the low poly with all props and clothing? Im asking cause Im interested in rigging some clothed characters and trying to get an idea of ballpark figures to get the ball rolling...

[leonlabyk]

Yes that is the low poly with everything. I am not to good when it comes to rigging but the edge looping and topology tends to be the most important area to focus on. I just looked over your Meryl Felstorm thread and you have some great stuff going on. I would suggest changing the pose before you begin rigging the characters though as I find it a lot harder to get good deformation around the shoulders in the pose you currently have. You could use the transpose tool to move the arms closer to a T pose. I tend to rig the arms angled down from the T pose. This is old but something like the last 2 images
http://simplymaya.com/forum/showthread.php?t=26598&pp=15&page=6
It does all depend on personal preference but I find it gives better results straight off the bat with the arms in this position and definitely made life easier.
Hope this helps Ben, best of luck with the rigging and keep up the great work,

Leon

[ben hobden]

Ah, right, yeah....was going to ask why the angled pose and not the T-pose. Yeah i'll give the angled way a go. Not sure when I'll get round to doing it, but when I do, that's the way i'll go. I'll let you know how I get on when I do.

[leonlabyk]

No probs Ben and best of luck when you start rigging.

Some progress on the M-4 just need to uv and texture.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-4Final.jpg

[Acid44]

That M-4 is ridiculously accurate, especially in how it comes apart

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Acid, gonna be used in a lot of shots and inserts so decided to make it as close to the real deal as poss. I am back to uving the mini gun now and hope to have some renders of it all textured in the black hawk soon.

[Acid44]

I had an airsoft AR-15, which is pretty much the same gun, so I can say from experience that that's one of the most accurate CG guns I've seen. Once textured it should be even amazinger :P

Are you gonna be modelling the little release pin at the back of the barrel in? (Assuming the M-4s have these, the AR-15 does) If you ever have a shot of it opened in the final renders, a little detail like that would add a ton of realism (to me anyways, though most people aren't gun nuts :P )

Love this project BTW

[mastone]

Amazingly detailed...when do you sleep? ;)

[leonlabyk]

Cheers for the encouragement guys, much appreciated. I go on leave for a month to catch up on sleep etc so here is a quick render until I return to this. Still need to uv and texture the M-4 though which I will more than likely with some of my free time. I have modeled the gunner mask and hope to get a good shot rendered out with the gunner on the mini gun and the marines climbing in the back when I return. + hope to get a decent scene set up in Vue to try and help improve the overall image.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed-3.jpg

[ben hobden]

nice with the vignette. You put your vue skills to this and that'll be a portfolio shot right there.

[bullet1968]

That is anice shot...good angle etc...Im with ben.


cheers bullet

[leonlabyk]

Cheers for the kind words guys, it is much appreciated. After a month long break I got back to work today and have set up the scene for a short piece of animation. I hope to get the velocitors working in vue so the trees and grass will go nuts as the black hawk approaches and lands. Will probably be 3-4 shots for the animation and may then grow from there. Here are some renders though of the scene + 1 with the black hawk in frame.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Frame1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/FromBelow.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/FromBelowLastFrame.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawk.jpg

[ben hobden]

he's back! and already producing awesomeness. Good to hear from you again Leon. These shots look great. Jealous of you're knowledge of Vue as ever. Hope your batteries are good and recharged.

[daverave]

Nice work as always, only crit is the tree trunks lack texture..........dave

[leonlabyk]

Wow cheers guys,
Am certainly now fully charged after a month of relaxing and no work, with regards to the knowledge of vue I owe it all to one of my work mates who left me with a shed load of tutorials he purchased. It is a great piece of kit and as I now have a much better idea of exactly how to use it I am able to get stuff done without any crashing and reasonable render times. Also have found vue x stream to be a lot more stable now and is working really well with mental ray.
on the tree trunk side they are currently running off a simple bitmap and I will try to sort out a decent texture before rendering out any final animation.

Thanks again guys,

Leon

[leonlabyk]

Ok I have got the crew in the blackhawk and have now animated this shot. I have just got the ventilators working properly, I think, and hope to have a rough copy of the animation finished tomorrow. Will post the animation tomorrow but here is a plain render with the crew and no trees flapping yet unfortunately.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/BlackHawk-1.jpg

[Acid44]

That looks amazing man

[ben hobden]

look forward to seeing it

[leonlabyk]

Ok here are 19 frames of the 500 with the trees getting effected. I will need to create some grass in Maya to import into Vue as the grass I am using will not work with the ventilators.

blackhawk on Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/27432139)

[murambi]

Very cool I really like this

[ben hobden]

The ventilators? They are what you use in Vue to simulate wind? Like newton and drag fields in Maya?

[leonlabyk]

Cheers guys,

Yeah ben the vetilators are indeed Vue's method for simulating wind. I basically tested the ventilator out in Vue to check it was having the desired effect. Once happy I saved the scene and opened it into Maya through Vue X Stream. I then Imported the Animated blackhawk and moved and parented the ventilator to the main rotor. Hey presto where ever the blackhawk now flies the vegetation is effected, well apart from the grass which I need to sort before rendering.

Hope this helps answer your question,

Leon

[leonlabyk]

Well this is probably as good as I can get it with the resources at my disposal. I am currently finalizing the hummer and hope to have it completed by the end of the week. Hope to then create a scene with it and get a small piece of animation together. Not sure how it is gonna work but just want to try and get something together to better show off the stuff I have been making than traditional turntables. Then the fun of applying for jobs begins.

Blackhawk on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/27764895)

[mastone]

Fun :)

I think the landing has to be a bit more gradual ( it's to shocky) and the trees in the background are swaying heavily, while the ( much smaller) grass isn't moving at all .

EDIT:
I just saw your own comments on vimeo, if you want to test the behavior, maybe replce the helicopter with a box and turn down the number of trees and grass for the simulation, this way you get the overall look and feel right without having to run a heavy scene .
You can parent the helicopter to the box afterwards ( and maybe do some secondary animation on that if you wish to do so)

[honestdom]

i think that animation looks really unbelievable.
I agree the trees seem miniature because they are swaying so much and the ground is totally unresponsive. I also think the whole thing looks like a 'day to night' comped shot. Its really dark, the 'blue' sky is grey for a start.

[leonlabyk]

One of my workmates just showed me this and think it may also be worth a look, craft studio.
Craft Helicopter - Turbo Tutorial - YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zt88yw7bEeY)
Gonna concentrate on the Hummer for the mo and take a break from this for a few days but will see if I can get it working better as it would be better to have it right than having it ropey.

Cheers as always for the crits and assistance guys it is a big help. Also your idea on the tress simulation Mastone is spot on, I will certainly use that method for trying to get this right.

Thanks again guys

[ben hobden]

I quite like it. Good to see a few more seconds of it, and it running smoother. The animation of the helicopter is slightly jerky..I think the main thing that sticks out to me as being 'wrong' is the couple of guys sitting on the edge there....they kind of bob back and forth a bit like crash test dummies?:) But I think the trees swaying looks good.

[CollinBishop]

I believe you should get more lessons from the great Matt Massie...

[leonlabyk]

Hahahahaha Nicely done,
I think I would rather learn from the food reviewer.

The new hummer is almost done with the mk64 mount for the Browning 50 cal + the alternative back and other doors. Am gonna set up a desert scene and try to get a decent render out for my folio and will then try and get these set up and animated with craft studio.

Cheers for your thoughts on this guys and will do my best to try and get it looking right.

[leonlabyk]

Ok here is the Hummer, got 2 versions one for cargo and the other is the more typical deal. The dirt can be taken down in ps as all the grub is on separate laters. Still need to get some texture on the rear lights which I will do later today but is pretty much done now.


http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/HummerV1a.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/HummerV1b.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/HummerV2a.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/HummerV2b.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/HummerV3b.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/HummerV3a.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/HummerV4b.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/HummerV4a.jpg

[ben hobden]

nice texturing Leon

edit: is it me, or do those beige panels around the small windows on the sides look noticeably devoid of textures?

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Ben, yep you are correct, they are cloth covers and I need to add textures to them also. It is pretty likely that they will be removed for any animation as they do not have them when at war and are there more for show. Will upload a couple of renders when I get them and the rear lights finished up and have this in a scene of sorts.

[CollinBishop]

Bring on the bedsheets and RPGs. If I don't see Zayed ****ing up a Blackhawk next to the Jebel I am gonna be pissed....

P.S. FoodReviewer's top recommended item of the week to sample is that of weed brownies.

I typed this while listening to "The Titanic Theme" to remember all those wonderful times

Today was a "8"

[leonlabyk]

Haha nice C,

Made some progress on the C-130 today. I still have a lot of tweaking to do and a lot more details and decals to add but think the base texture for this is starting to take shape.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130d.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130a.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130b.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130c-1.jpg

[CollinBishop]

Labyk,

The C-130 looks dope. I still need to send you the Usernames and PW's to our sites so you can check out some of those ZBrush brushes. Will def help with the rivets. Gonna have the master built within the next two weeks given I just ramped up my CC again and have been leveraging purchases to up my Credit score.

Will throw this shizz into a scene and get the ball rolling once I get my hands onto the new C4D. Will now pipe from Arena to MB to C4D and then just render in their new renderer off the 4 Xeon's.

Maybe Jay would be up for allowing me to open simplyC4D.com.

Just kidding Jay, but honestly a site for C4D is coming soon to help with the push on the program....

best,

Collin Bishop

P.S. You need to edit something together with "It's Raining Men"

[leonlabyk]

Ok think this is nearly done at last. Will next try and get the chinook looking better as it has a lot of technical issues + the textures could be a lot better. Then the M-4 and environment stuff.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130h.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130g.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130f.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130e.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130d-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130c-2.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130a-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/C-130i.jpg

[Creck]

Amazing work mate! can I ask you what did you use to unwrap it ? Was it Headus ?

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Creck,

I use headus for some things but I find it works best for organic shapes as it tends to struggle with hard surface objects in my experience. I personally find roadkill to be really useful and use it for almost all hard surface work and adjust the uvs after as and where needed.

anything you need should be found here should you wish to try it out.
http://www.pullin-shapes.co.uk/page8.htm

Also don't hesitate to let me know if you have any questions or problems as I will try and assist should you need.

[bullet1968]

Outstanding work Leon....very nice indeed man...LOL..I have a lot of work to do to get my Spitfire up to this calibre of work...sigh.

cheers Bullet

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Bullet,

Am currently sorting the chinook out and hope to have it finished by the end of next week. Is a linked turntable of the C-130 below although I have made some changes to some of the interior textures since. One of the problem areas was the far wall as you travel down the interior, just looks rushed.

Untitled on Vimeo (http://www.vimeo.com/28710767)

[CollinBishop]

So I decided to post this on here since the last bust I did Leon told me looked like crap. You guys tell me where any problems you see are. Not any tri's or NGons. Just good ole' quads. My goal is to throw it into FR and apply a C3D file to it. This is just the base. No tweaking, no sculpting. Took me about 3 hours off and on. BTW I don't actually model in Maya but in C4D. It's all the same in my book. Hope to get some good comments back. Of course I could never steal Leon's thunder given what I know is from him sitting next to me...

[daverave]

The topology not bad but the proportions are out,neck to thin, eyes need to be closer together nostrols not defind and for this stage to meny polys, Leon what are you teaching him.......LOL..........dave

[leonlabyk]

the wire looks much better and is really good for a 1st proper attempt matey. I would work on the proportions a bit more though, try getting some ref shots off the net and roughly base it on someone. Don't go for a full on likeness, just try to improve on the proportions as they are looking a bit awkward to me. Did a real rough in photoshop to show what I mean, I would just take the base into zbrush with some ref images though.

Only other area for improvement is the wireframe. You have your edges going straight back to the ears and down from the head to chin, is all a bit like a grid and very uniform. Is kinda tricky to explain but I think heads look better when the edges follow the skull shape. This is due to you allowing the shape of the underlying tissue and bone structure to control the edge flow. I have emailed you the model I did although it is far from perfect. If you look at it from the side though you can see the circular shape flowing around the head, if you look at yours from the side you will notice the line just goes straight down. Is tricky and is an area I still need to improve on as this is where you can really make or break the model in my opinion. If you get things right at this stage the mesh will look great even at low poly counts. Uploaded a wire of that guys luc Begin model as it is really pro and is more what I need to be aiming for when it comes to the general edge flow.

Keep it up though matey and is really bloody good for a 1st attempt and I cannot see you having any problems with it.

[leonlabyk]

yo Dave
haha we worked together for the past 14 months in the middle earth and have taught each other a fair bit. I taught to model in quads and to avoid booleans. Collin taught me I need to embrace change more, especially zspheres and re topo though as he Kicked my ass in every speed modeling comp. I would get together a rough base mesh in 30 mins while he would have a sculpt out of zbrush done using zspheres that was a million miles better than what I had. My only attempt to try and hold face would be to point out some poles in awkward areas but I had always been thrashed. Plus at the end of the day it is only gonna take 30 mins to retopo the model and have it finished so I can see the benefit and why so many use this method. One time I lost so badly after making a manatee I took it home and finalized the model in maya, rigged and textured it and animated it into a live shot. Wasted about 8 hours but was pretty hilarious.

[daverave]

By far the best way to learn some thing new is sit next to some one who is doing it, Leon have you got a link to that manatee animation. Look on the bright side Collin trashes you(in speed), you could easily trash me but you are very good in what you do........dave

[leonlabyk]

Unfortunately the manatee is in a top secret classified video and unfortunately I cannot share it with the public. Also it should not be in the video and was inserted as a risky joke but was so subtle no one even noticed. Is kinda worrying when you are not required in your job to the extent you start sticking random stuff in videos.
Would be great to work for a company that saw my skills as somewhat useful although I need to get a lot better if I want to be a professional. I will keep pushing and trying to improve though as I love doing this, and am really glad I started learning 3d. Am looking forward to testing out photofly soon in the hope I may be able to create decent digital doubles after some re topo work. Looks like an interesting bit of kit though and could certainly be useful.

More uving with the chinook tomorrow though and hope to start texturing on Sunday.

[CollinBishop]

Wish I could get some more angles on that Luc Begin model. Scrolled through his thread and couldn't find any. A 90 on his head would be great and then I could see the flow. What about the infinite realities head (The one I posted on your wall/ Free one). Is that good enough flow. I know what you mean and I while I was modeling it I knew it had issues. Pretty much conceded to the fact that I am gonna have to do about 5 heads to get it down. Then comes the body...

Yo ordered the master. Looks something like this:

Coolermaster (Blah blah blah number)
i7 Sandy Bridge (Gonna OC to 4.5GHz)
Corsair H100 Liquid cooler
Sabertooth p67
Sabertooth 50mm assist fan (Did you get this one Labyk? Keeps the board from overheating)
Seasonic 650w PSU
Corsair 4 4Gb RAM
Sony BD Unit
NVIDIA Quadro 4000
(Cables and what not)

Will hook this up to my two Sharp 40" 1080 LED monitors through DP to HDMI

Whole thing runs about 3g's in all. Not bad since I figured out how to lace initial unit into a tax writeoff. Next is the server assembly. Oh boyyyyyy

Also snagged a Ergotron Arm for the Cintiq. Gonna mount it to that so there is no more of the bullshit of sitting upright in a certain position. God I hate that.

Will let you know what fails when it arrives and I have to RMA that shizzz.

Later Labyk


Collin

[leonlabyk]

Awesome,

here is my 1st attempt at a tutorial on the uv stuff. Will try to get a more in depth one up once I iron out the video problems. Will also try to get into the headus stuff a bit as well.

RoadKill UV tutorial on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/28854161)

Hope it helps

[ishaan]

hey its too gur man , plz teach me...............

[leonlabyk]

Started getting pics of environment stuff as well, just set up some walls so far and am hoping to start making some buildings, shops etc next week. Also some progress on the Chinook.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Env2-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Env3-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Env4.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Env1-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook1a.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook1b.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Chinook1c.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Some more progress,

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/CinookExterior.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/ChinookExterior1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/ChinookExterior2.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/ChinookInterior.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Some texture tweaks to the marine and now have a dirty and clean Version

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/MarineClean1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/MarineDirty.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Going to try and finish this bald falcon up in the next couple of days. I was trying to get the feathers working with mb feather for xsi but a few of the options are not working and so am gonna see if collin bishop aka the chav fister can get some clothes on the beast. Is rigged and ready to fly and just is in need of the body feathers as well as some extra feathers to cover the wings.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/falco.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/falco1.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Gonna try and get some decent feather pics soon so I can texture the body feathers.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Falcon-1.jpg

[bullet1968]

wow looking good man...well done thus far...will watch the tut today!

cheers bullet

[njkc]

Just a quick stop to say, everything looks really well. I love the Humvee. I am not in any way good at anything 3d, most of what I attempt looks like a preschoolers drawings. That in mind please don't be mad at my little suggestion. It's just a quick tiny thing, having ridden in my fair share of ch-46's and ch-53's, the interior is never a clean place. There is always fluid leakage everywhere, whether it's hydrolic, oil or whatever the case may be along with said fluid stained here and there. Case in point, my first ride there was fluid leaking from where the rotor comes in on the roof. I said something about it and the guy said that that meant everything was working. He said if it stopped leaking that's when to tuck and start praying. Course that same ride I ended up having my window ripped out (who knew it was just some Velcro / zipper type material holding in place) behind me while we flew over open ocean and he just laughed. Anywho, like I said really like everything you've done especially that Humvee

[CollinBishop]

Just had some fun with ZBrush. Bust of my father. This should be fun adding the pores and wrinkles. Gotta love Ze Brush... Cheers to Labyk for helping guide me on the workflow. Or at the very least the motivation.

[CollinBishop]

Wrinkles are in place. My dad doesn't have many for a 60 yr old so they won't be a lot but I think they represent quite well. Now onto UVing and texturing. Any suggestions out there?

[honestdom]

hey man, i think you should make your own thread for this.

[CollinBishop]

It's all good. I just won't post anymore since I don't really use Maya. Figured since Leon and I shared many cande-lit romantic nights together in middle earth that I might be able to inhabit his thread. Don't wanna cause any problems. Later dudes...

[leonlabyk]

Looking rad my man.

I am not bothered with you jumping on this thread at all matey as we are both working together on this now and is all cool with me. The only + to starting your own thread is people will be able to direct crit at you specifically. Nothing to say from my end though and think the proportions are looking spot on and that this method is gonna speed up our workflow tremendously.

Also I would not worry about posting work on here that is not specific to Maya. I know Kurt for one has threads which have a lot of zbrush work. He's base meshes are made in Maya but all the progress is in zbrush, people use the site as you would expect to answer questions and help improve the final with feedback and crits.

Damn a piece of me died every time we went out to eat when they lit one of those damn candles, and that music ahhhhhhhhhhhhh.

Also Njkc, cheers for your kind words and I totally agree, I will try to add a lot more muck to the textures on the characters as well as vehicles but what is there is mainly a final base which can be tweaked to give variation.
I will try to get back to this soon, have just been busy with other work at the moment and hope to be back on this next week.

Cheers guys,

Leon

[bullet1968]

Yeh Col...bang a new thread in man so we can see the work progress more...it looks bloody good mate....like the daintiness of the wrinkles dude...nicely done. You too Leon..always looking the biz!

cheers bullet

[TravisCowsill]

Been busy as have loads of models I need to create at the moment so my wolf project is gonna have to go on hold for a couple of weeks. Thought I would share one of the models that I am currently working on though.

Sweet holy hell.

Are you kidding me? This is outrageous. Well done!

Does everyone know how to do this lighting but me? How are you doing this gray-light set up? I am definitely checking out the tire tutorial.

I feel like such the newb I am. Great great stuff man.

Thanks,

Travis

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Travis,

to get the renders I use mental ray and a physical sun set up.
1st goto window>settings and prefs>plug in manager now make sure Mayatomr.mll is checked. Now you need to open your render settings and make sure you are using mental ray. Next goto the indirect lighting tab in your render settings and hit the create option for physical sun and sky. You can now goto the quality tab and select production for a decent render, next in the features tab you will need to make sure final gather is checked. Only other option worth changing in here is under the common tab> enable color management.

This should now work fine but it is a good idea to adjust the gamma as the image can be pretty blown out. To do this you will need to open the hypershade and goto the utilities tab and select the mia exposure node. I tend to set the gamma to 1.333 but see what works for you.

If you have any questions or probs feel free to email me leondannylabyk@hotmail.com

Best of luck and hope this answers your question though.

[TravisCowsill]

Cheers Travis,

to get the renders I use mental ray and a physical sun set up.
1st goto window>settings and prefs>plug in manager now make sure Mayatomr.mll is checked. Now you need to open your render settings and make sure you are using mental ray. Next goto the indirect lighting tab in your render settings and hit the create option for physical sun and sky. You can now goto the quality tab and select production for a decent render, next in the features tab you will need to make sure final gather is checked. Only other option worth changing in here is under the common tab> enable color management.

This should now work fine but it is a good idea to adjust the gamma as the image can be pretty blown out. To do this you will need to open the hypershade and goto the utilities tab and select the mia exposure node. I tend to set the gamma to 1.333 but see what works for you.

If you have any questions or probs feel free to email me leondannylabyk@hotmail.com

Best of luck and hope this answers your question though.

Wow. Thank you so much. I will (to all). And thanks for the invitation of communication. i may actually do that just to bend your ear a bit on the software and the biz. Thanks again!!!

[leonlabyk]

you are welcome Travis and feel free to drop me an email anytime.

Not really much in the way of progress as I have just been making sure everything is to scale with regard to chairs, controls etc. The vehicles and weapons are pretty much bang on but needed to make some minor adjustments to the seats and other bits and pieces. Character is fully rigged and ready to go and so I will try and get some decent animation together soon.

Here is a render with a lone soldier in the chinook.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed-4.jpg

[leonlabyk]

been looking over some more images and still need to lower the seats a bit more and tweak the scale, I have a ref image with some marines kicking back though so will try and replicate it and get a render up tomorrow. If I have time I might get a still together with the hummer also.

Cheers

[leonlabyk]

Couple of renders with things to scale. I really need to get portal lights sussed now so I can get more light into the interiors of these models from the physical sun set up. Will try to get them worked them out next.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/HummerMarines_out.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/testingcopy_out1.jpg

[honestdom]

I tend to set the gamma to 1.333 but see what works for you.


Why do you set it to 1.333, shouldn't it be set to 0.454?

[leonlabyk]

Just done a few extra parts for the M-4. Hopefully I will get this thing uvd and textured soon.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/m-4a-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/m-4c-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/m-4b-1.jpg

[ben hobden]

That looks cool Leon. I don't get the look though. I like it, but what material is that? Is that a contour shader of some sort?

[leonlabyk]

Cheers Ben,

Yeah just a blinn using the contour option.

[ben hobden]

it works really well.

[leonlabyk]

Just some turntables with a few of the models I have been working on.

Untitled on Vimeo (http://vimeo.com/32395206)

[SilverFeather]

Awesome, I like the helicopters and Hummer the most. How did you make that effect where they appear to have parts fading away?

[leonlabyk]

Cheers SilverFeather,

I simply keyframed the transparency on the material so objects faded out. It kind of works but could use more work if I wanted it to look good. Was just put together on the fly for a quick presentation so it was really rushed.

[SilverFeather]

Cheers SilverFeather,

I simply keyframed the transparency on the material so objects faded out. It kind of works but could use more work if I wanted it to look good. Was just put together on the fly for a quick presentation so it was really rushed.

Oh, similar to animating color change? Cool. Thanks for the info.

[leonlabyk]

been working on various stuff and had a holiday but here is some progress. I have also started on an abrams and will post progress soon.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed-7.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/M-4e-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Guns.jpg

[djwaterman]

Fantastic thread. I'm having to learn Maya and your models look as good as any I've seen done in other apps, so I can stop complaining about Maya now and just get to learning it. I've figured you have some kind of Defense contract job that's keeping you busy. I would imagine your skills and portfolio could get you work just about anywhere if you feel the need to move on.

[leonlabyk]

cheers djwaterman,

Maya is an awesome app as are all 3d apps. I do still have problems with it from time to time but when I started keeping my files to a more professional standard (no history, clean hierarchy, objects names, shaders textures etc) I find I rarely have any issues. I am currently working a military contract and would love to branch into other areas but it is incredibly difficult to get paid to do this for a living due to the extremely high level of work that people are now creating. I consider myself extremely lucky to be able to get paid to do this but I am going to return to the UK this summer to look into other ventures. I am currently working with a small team as we are trying to get all of my work running in cryengine 3. I have also begun creating a level and am shocked as to how simple the workflow is what with having some 3d knowledge. I am hoping to have all of the vehicles, marine, para, pilot and ct characters working in the engine when I leave my current contract at the end of May. I will try to get a render up of the Abrams later which is pretty much complete and I am currently just finishing up the uv's ready for texturing.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed-8.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed1b.jpg

[leonlabyk]

Abrams, need to model the gun attachment still along with the sight at the end of the gun. Hope to begin texturing this very soon though.

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/abrams-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/abrams1.jpg

[daverave]

Nice tank Leon.............dave

[leonlabyk]

Finally an update on the tank. Been real busy as of late with trying to get all of this working and running in cry engine and hope to have something awesome to share in about a months time.

In the mean time the Abrams so far

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed1-1.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed2.jpg

http://i222.photobucket.com/albums/dd288/leonlabyk/Processed3.jpg

[ben hobden]

the textures and renders look great.

what size / how many texture maps have you used on the tank?