Hi,


The last 2 weeks I’ve been working on a fictional cavalry tank as both a portfolio piece and an exercise to get a better understanding of bakes for production values. I was going for a look influenced by Keith Thompson’s work on Iron Grip.

Incoming large amounts of text on how I designed it. Scroll to the bottom of the post for the images.

I went through the design process by first putting down some final features to get me started: the squashed half-spherical shape of the turret, inspired by the T-62, as well as the floating suspension arms. The overall look I was going for was streamlined with few details, but functional looking. I didn’t have any concept art, so I did a blockout of the tank in Maya, changing shapes quickly so I can get a rough silhouette from all angles..

That got me pretty far for the front of the tank, but I still had no idea for the back, nor how to connect the floating arms to the body. I thought of dropping the floating arms in favor of more traditional suspension several times, but that wouldn’t have seem like I’m just cheating myself.

I looked up more references (I should have done that properly in the beginning) and looked at early WW2 and Inter-war light tanks. The shape of the back sorta evolved from the French Hotchkiss H35 tank, but felt empty. The curve on the back gave a more cohesive feel and to the front, as well as giving me a way to connect the arms to the hull.

After I was happy with the silhouette, I started the high poly. Since I didn’t have a proper concept at the beginning, it slowed me down immensely: I had no idea of what type of details to add to the hull, nor if the mechanics I had in place in the block out worked (they didn’t). I had to make some overall changes to make it look sorta functional. The suspension was the most thought out in the blockout phase, but still needed a lot of changes to be functional.

The main things I learnt through this piece so far and they're all beginner mistakes I never adressed:

-Gather your refs at the beginning
-Do a concept piece and think out all the large pieces then
-Human placeholders work wonders for better understanding both the inside and the outside of a vehicle.

I've started on the low poly, more to come soon

Reference sheet:

High Poly:


Any feedback or comments are welcome.

This looks like it's coming along nicely, I will keep a eye on your thread

Coooll.... nice work....

Great ideia and very nice start! Subscribed!

Nice design. I really like the shape of the pieces holding the wheels.

cool design- the mechanisms along the side of the treads remind me a bit of what you see on the inside of a pocket watch. It might be cool to reference some watch innards to help further push that shape language

Digging the HP and agreed with above the wheel look cool. But I have one thing to say about the treads. if this thing ever does see combat those treads are as good as done immobilizing the tank.

It looks cool but the practicality isn't all there.

I agree - the treads look too slack to be functional. Seems like they would rub against the small shelf by the shovel.

That "pirate tank" concept is cool though - you should expand on the giant pistons look you've got going on the wheels I think those give it alot of character.

Agreed with all above. The treads need a little work, but im digging the design

Rob Macko, cmtanko, chrisavigni, cdevens, pmcgowan: Thanks
konstruct: Thanks for the idea. I didn't think it like that, but it might offer more ways to improve them. I was trying to get ideas from steam engines, but since they use straight beams, it wasn't really what I was looking for. Also, could you explain to me what shape language is? I haven't heard the term before.
Hang10: Cheers! Are you talking about them being useless in battle because of the slack, the lack of side skirts, the threads themselves or all? If it's the slack, that's easily fixable.
DarkLeopard: The treads themselves, or the path through which they follow?

Here are 2 quick concepts on removing the slack from the treads while trying to keep the shape

A. involves a return roller with a suspension, that should keep the tread tightened, but still allow for movement in case large amounts of dirt gather on it.
B. Here, I just added a large wheel on the suspension anchor, so it acts as a return roller, without doing many significant changes. One downside is that it seems to have an empty spot on the hull

What do you guys think? I'm biased towards A, since the shape of the treads are closer to the idea I started with.

I suppose shape language is one of those terms I`ve picked up over the years that doesn't really exist outside of specific dev studios.

Shape language simply refers to a collection of design aesthetics, specifically shape/volumes, but often extends to textural or color information. The goal is to define a specific style. Defining a shape language is particularly useful when designing a large set of assets that are meant to compliment one another.

the combine from HL2
the Necris from UT3
or
the Tau for 40k

are all examples of how shape language is used to help push the design process.
Defining shape language is usually the hardest part- but ideally all subsequent designs should fall in place as a result of an established shape language.

Looking good. Could you post some wires? Thanks!

A looks more believable than B- - and gives an excuse to add more steampunky pistons!

Sorry for the incredibly late update, Killing Floor was taking up my time

While this isn't a massive update, I've just been tweaking little things, trying to geta more cohesive look. I went for the simpler version in the end since it looked like a more elegant solution. I started doing some low poly pieces to get some good bakes, but I've been running into some triangulation issues due to how Maya calculates the triangles. Anybody know why it's happening?

Thanks for watching.

It's been some time since I last updated. So far, I've been optimizing and baking to get good results as well as doing some minor tweaks on the high poly that hopefully make it feel more cohesive as an object.

Seeing how almost all pieces are very symmetrical, I tried making the pieces symmetrical as well, to save UV space. That turned out to be a pretty costly idea, since it skyrocketed the tricount. Right now, the tank, with some bits and pieces missing, is sitting at 20,860 tris. The things left to do are the lights, tool box, suspended arms and the baces for the barrel. I still chose to go with copying some parts, rather than integrating them in other objects (such as the wheel nuts).




Comments and feedback are most welcome.

I've been neglecting the tank and thread for quite some time. I'm starting to be happy with the bake results for the normal maps. This is a test bake to see how the normal maps would look.



Also, I've been having some weird issues with the last piece, the suspended swing arms. This is the result I get in normal map. I'd appreciate any insight or help.


Thanks for watching.

Glad you're updating this! That mix of organic forms with some angles give a nice contrast. Love the areas around your tread the most!

Another update:

@BelgianBoolean: Thanks!

First of all, thanks to Lamont for helping me sort out through some normal issues.

I baked the normal map for everything, but noticed 2 problems with it: The UVs for the wheel weren't offset properly so I'm getting some transparency due to the alpha on it, and I missed the straps that hold the pickaxe/shovel in place.

I also added a jerrycan and a stand for it on the back, although Marmoset has some issues in displaying it. The Low poly currently clocks in at 22k, so I'll have to do some trimming.

After fixing those errors, it's time to get started on the texture.





Thanks for watching.

Hey guys,

I started work on the texture some time ago. I was hoping to post it sooner, but I had a bit of a hard drive problem. Here's where I am at now. I'm still new to texturing so any feedback is good. Based off of Alec Moody's Bradley tutorial.




Cheers.

looks good i would do the treads with a stencil type alpha shader with holes in the main "top" of the texture and a strip of side profile polys (with baked alpha to give suilohete better shape)

hope that makes sense

Hey real nice going so far dude!

I think you've skipped ahead a few steps texturing tho, the metal bodywork needs more defining as a material type before you move onto the small details like dirt.

Great work, keep it up

Model is so cool, but I think that textures is not good and spoil it. Actualy I have the same problem. Have nice mode, but when I try to make texture, it looks like crap )

@Shep Thanks. It sorta makes sense. I mean what you understand, but I'm trying to imagine how I'd go about making it. I'll look into it. Worst case scenario, I just change the treads to something easier to pull off. The texture for the treads is separate from the rest.

@Mask: Thanks! I put some color variation from rust reference, but I guess it's too subtle. Will make them stronger. As for skipping ahead, I admit.

@Artaani: That's why we both need to keep improving our texturing skills.

This is my first time seeing this thread and I really like what you've pulled off so far. The model and design are pretty tight (I don't mind the lack of protection to the tracks either) so hopefully you can polish the texture enough to enhance what's already there.

Don't be afraid to quickly play around with paint overs and/or material bakes to help you get a better idea of what direction you want to go with the texture if you aren't stuck on this particular palette yet. It might be helpful to focus on how you might want to shift both color and tone before you get too far (ie maybe dirt on the wheels and part of chassis will be lighter in tone and warmer or you could reverse that and use darker tone for wet look).

You mentioned Alec's tutorial and I'm pretty sure he covers the importance of making sure your texture reads properly both up close and further away. I can't stress how important this is! It's easy to fall in love with the details but keep pulling back and making sure your main shapes are still reading properly. Once again, great work and can't wait to see how this bad boy turns out once finished!

@Bee-Bee: Thanks a lot. I tried a couple of camo types before arriving to the green monochrome palette. They didn't gel with me well.

I darkened the green, brightened the drips, so hopefully they read better and turned on spec. Hopefully it'll read better now and look more like metal than of felt. The turret is still mainly a solid color.