Pershing Tank

[CNecron518a]

Optimus prime.

I'm still working on it but its pretty close.

[Amad]

Hey Chris,

The Ambient adds a lot to it, it's coming along nicely! I had a couple of thoughts on this..

If you're going for realism, I'd do 2 things. First, I'd add a layer to indicate material. Right now it's reading as sort of ambient mixed with color, which comes across and ambiguous. You could find something on CG textures that indicates metal, then overlay it in your image. You could also add a hint of noise, break it up with a grunge pass then slightly sharpen the whole thing too. That'd read nicely.

If it's whimsical and toy-like, you could go with a toon shader and a cool paintjob. There's a tutorial somewhere around here that goes through toon shading. If you mixed those two together you could come up with something really cool and fun.

[CNecron518a]

Yeah thanks Josh, yeah I am still working on it so its not done, I just wanted to post it to show my unwrapping and texture so far. I agree, I want to make it more realistic and I have some good ideas on how to do that. Thanks for the advice, i'll get on it.

[CNecron518a]

more realistic?

[dabu]

decent unwrap job.

WHY is the shot of your tank squished? Just hold shift to scale in pshop. Repost so we can clearly see your work and Ill be able to crit better.

[CNecron518a]

Yeah I'm not sure what happend, I just did a render and put it on a new photoshop document, for some reason it scaled weird. Here's just the viewport. I was also doing a Mental ray render with advanced lighting, but I need to check that because there is this really annoying highlight on the turret.. so I'm going to play more with the lighting.

[dabu]

don't show me renders. Just shaded with no lights in mayas viewport and screen grab.

[CNecron518a]

Okay, so here's it without lights(the last one wasn't a render, it was a view port screen grab but had lighting)

[dabu]

you need subtle white hi lites over all edges.

and some more color variation going from dark at the bottom to lighter at top on the entire tank.

Improving...

[CNecron518a]

Since this is a prop for a current generation game console, I was under the impression that painting highlights and shadows wasn't as important as getting everything else to work(such as normal maps, etc. Is this the case Daniel or do game artists even now days still paint these details into their maps for current generation games such as call of duty? I am noticing a lot of scratches if nothing else.

[dabu]

If this is for current consoles (360, ps3, etc) then you will need to model a HI RES version of this for baking out normal maps, and generating and AO pass. Then you will create a diffuse and spec to go with the normal map.

Last time I checked in on your current texturing, you weren't generating satisfactory results using diffuse (color) only. So it would probably serve you best to go that route and master it first before attempting anything current gen. That doesn't mean you need to deal with super low geo, or map size.

I need to see satisfying examples of last gen before you take on adv texture and lighting. And this is coming along in terms of being a solid diffuse only texture.

[CNecron518a]

Well, I guess I'll just focus on making the texture really strong for right now. So I'll do the highlights and everything.

[CNecron518a]

So I added some more details, added highlights and added some white color to the main brown texture to get some variation.

[Amad]

Hey chris,

Looking cool :D You might try going in and doing a sharpen on your seams in photoshop... nothing huge, but enough to get them tight and avoid pixelation.

[rburke]

what size map is that anyways. i don't really know if it is big enough. The wheels come across as very detailed but the rest of the tank body is so blurry. Now if this was going to be viewed from a distance all the time from a fixed camera game then i think its fine. but if you ended up viewing it up close its going to fall apart. I suggest maybe trying a bit higher res texture. Your uv usage looks good to me though and as most other have suggested it needs more range especially with the highlights. Start painting some wear in the areas where it gets the most abuse. Then mark it up with paint, scratches and finally some mud. Right now the "shading" its too uniform as is the overall texture. The mix from brown to tan is a good approach but it think the scale of the noise that is mixing the two is a bit high, almost reads as rock or something. Try making the tank one uniform color then painting out highlights and shadows then go back and add the color variation as a layer.

This will look great when you done, and tanks are hard so stick with it.

[CNecron518a]

The texture map size is 512, so its not exactly high res texture map. But I think I am going to just do this as not a current gen prop, as Daniel said it would require the normal map and everything.

[rburke]

hmm well you can keep it prev gen but i would maybe try to use 2 512 textures. one 512 for this seems just so small given the amount of surface you need to cover. either way you can make it work. But i still recommend 2 maps if you where to break this down to how many pixels per meter one map is going to give you a super low texel density , after all a tank is pretty darn big, will most likely occupy more screen space than a character, and will usually be the first object you look at in a scene.

[CNecron518a]

naw man, I'm just going to stick with the 512. But thanks. I think when I do take the advanced texture class we are going to be working with 1024 texture maps so I'll get to utilize that then, but until then I am going to stick with this. I'm not sure where you are getting that the main texture looks blurry, the Uvs aren't stretched or anything so it may have to do with the brown/tan texture. Maybe I'll go back to the drawing board with the main color like an army green with metal scratches on the lower part of the tank. Maybe that would work better. Right now the scheme is like a desert color scheme, so if I did stick with that what would you think it would look like?

[rburke]

yeah the desert scheme will work fine. if you look at the reference it is much more uniform with color with the variations being more localized. The initial pass you showed just looks too much like a perlin noise texture or something. So a flatter base color with less randomness will work good. then id add in the color variation, and or camo as a layer later down the line once the basic undercoat was working well. Its still going to be sweet. no one ever models a pershing all i ever see people making is the sherman.
Ive included 2 pics here to sorta illustrate what im talking about. the first one is a scale model but looks nice anyways and the second is a picture of a pershsing. In both you can see that eh general color is very uniform, almost as if its covered with a layer of fine dirt. hope these help. But the desert colors are going to be sweet.

[hadidjah]

I have to agree on the color variation- I think it seems very obvious that the same filter was used on all the parts and it seems redundant rather than consistent.

I think trying to add a little grunge would add a lot to make the texture work pop- I know you're working with a small map, but just some wear and tear or mud (or whatever the sticky desert equivalent of mud is) smattered around could go a long way. Your highlights and lowlights so far are working well, so I think compounding that would add some depth.:)

[stunriver]

Don't be afraid on putting highlight on edges as dabu said.

I desaturate a metal picture, I know the tank would not be that shiny or metalic at all, but u should see when you see an edge there would be highlight and darker shadow than the surrounding both are such obvious 2 values that would create edges in 2D pictures, Those circles I made is examples of darker and highlight value on edge. U should do the same without scaring to made mistakes.

being able to differentiate hard Edges in vehicles are the most important I think. Highlight and shadow are exist almost everywhere in hard edge objects.

[CNecron518a]

Alright, I scrapped the general brown/tan with a metal overlay which I think was the problem, and now it is more uniformed I think and consistent with the overall texture. Also I did do highlights, but I don't think I pronounced them enough and now I fixed that by making them more apparent. Also I looked into the history of the Pershing in WW2 and the whole desert scheme doesn't seem very plausible as the tank was used in the later parts of the WW2(and later Korea) and was featured in the battle of the bulge that was fought during the winter mostly. I also found that the greenish/brown was the primary color scheme(more brown than green) during the war.

[stunriver]

its probably too hard to do fine highlights on 512 textures. I'm sorry but it's probably better to undo the highlight u just did if that's really highlight(the white spots all over the edges).
because right now they are too spotty. or maybe the stretch pulling all the highlight and makes it blurry. that won't help making a highlight.

personally I think the previous one you showed is better. I think you just need more dirt detail on the head of the tank.
I really think you've done a good job on the tank with 512.

[CNecron518a]

Yeah its not really scratches I think It looks more like snow. In regards to the main texture, I think what everyone else was saying was that before the main texture I had for the tank was too inconsistent. The actual texture was too cloudy I think. Other than that, I'm liking the new look personally. The main hull texture now isn't nearly as cloudy, and the main texture I think is more uniform. I actually did do highlights on the panels on the top of the side of the tracks. Its actually sort of hard to see so maybe those aren't important if you can't see them anyways but I actually like the snow look so I think I'll go with that, and if I do I will pronounce the snow look more, and make it more consistent. Either that or I will make the scratches less big(right now if they are they are pretty big I agree, but like I said previously I think it fits more with the story that the Pershing was used primarily towards the end of the war by the Americans in the battle of the bulge, which according to the historical reports I read it was very snowy that time.

http://www.battleofthebulge.org/monuments.html

-

[stunriver]

Ic That is a snow lol, now I look at it yeah it looks like a snow, though u need it to make it more obvious. and be careful because seems like you are mirroring everything, so it might look like a texture error rather than a snow.

[CNecron518a]

And this is coming along in terms of being a solid diffuse only texture.

Wait so are you liking it?

[A_GAME]

Hey Chris, I would say this is one of your best pieces. I would take a look at these tutorials for painting metal/hard surfaces. I think you could really apply this knowledge to your texture.
http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/texturing_metal/texturing_metal1.asp

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/stefan_morrell/stefan_01.asp

http://www.3dtotal.com/team/Tutorials/texture_katherine_dinger/dirty_texture01.asp

http://www.3dtotal.com/ffa/tutorials/photoshop/worn_metal/metal.asp

take your pick. They are all good.

[dabu]

yeah, its getting there. Its the lack of subtle white hi lites that are missing, youll get there.

try some of those tuts that austin posted.

[dabu]

ADD shadows and hilights

check your texel density.

[rburke]

check it out. here is a screen from Call of Duty 5. i saw this when i was playing the other day. its interesting how they but an alpha plane around the edge of the tracts to give the appearance of depth. I thought this may be useful to you when polishing up this project.

[CNecron518a]

Yeah sorry for the lack of updates, I was working vigorously on this and some other projects. Rburke thanks for the tread idea, I went ahead and did it. And I added highlights too, as well as pronounced the metal texture more.

Edit:sorry rburke, what is your name?

[rburke]

lol names Ryan. Im sure we have meet in person at some point. and this is looking alot better.