KA-52 Alligator Russian Attack Helicopter
polycounter lvl 6
GDC is creeping around the corner and my AR15 has entered its texture stage, with strong hopes of finishing my AR15 by the end of the month I started to analyze what I could do from now till March as my next project. I will be working on this a few days in between as I texture my AR15 to give myself some break's to analyze. My overall jobs goals entail vehicle/weapons artist for a realistic shooter, my eyes are currently set at Dice L.A from prior love with the franchise
Long story short, I saw Reno Levi Longbow tease and http://www.cantarel.de/ MI-24 and fell in love with the beauty of helicopters. I watched a couple documentary and studied up the past month before I decided to tackle this model (300 reference collected and 7 collages breaking the helicopter into parts has been assembled/blueprints scene setup). I am starting this thread early as I begin making my first vehicle.
Intention will be to model the Helicopter as close to the references I gathered and accuracy further then my DeWalt Jigsaw/AR15. I will mainly be aiming to accomplish the high poly by GDC and pre-gdc finish the low (Battlefield 5 resolution/bake and apply at studios)
Collage Example:
Side View Collage
Long story short, I saw Reno Levi Longbow tease and http://www.cantarel.de/ MI-24 and fell in love with the beauty of helicopters. I watched a couple documentary and studied up the past month before I decided to tackle this model (300 reference collected and 7 collages breaking the helicopter into parts has been assembled/blueprints scene setup). I am starting this thread early as I begin making my first vehicle.
Intention will be to model the Helicopter as close to the references I gathered and accuracy further then my DeWalt Jigsaw/AR15. I will mainly be aiming to accomplish the high poly by GDC and pre-gdc finish the low (Battlefield 5 resolution/bake and apply at studios)
Collage Example:
Side View Collage
Replies
Also since it came up in the hangouts, just wanted to check if you've seen this thread in tech talk. Might be useful anyway.
This is my favorite chopper by the way. Glad to see other people has similar interests
Heli's are hard, so no slacking.
(?)
@Bek Ill be posting periodically and making it in chunks to maintain accuracy and to layout the areas for all the accessories of the helicopter.
@MeshPotato/BringMeASunkist/Dmellot Hope you enjoy, once I finish my AR15 going full force at it
Progress to showcase my workflow, started with the front nose to make sure my blueprints are aligned (had to scale up the side nose as it was shorter than the top and so far it helped/worked). Will be applying Grant Warwick vehicle workflow and Andrew Cantarel in his vimeo tutorial as I progress and overall how I like to approach my modeling.
Next will begin blockout the window and doing that main area and cutting it off before it reaches the main body, this will be very important that I nail to get the full proportions for the helicopter. Weapons/Turrets/Sensors/Cameras will be model on the side as such I did with my AR15.
On the 4th day, today I began blocking in the weapon holster (beam carrier) and got 2 done. There still 2 left and then the weapons themselves. At this rate the helicopter would be more along the lines of my gun where adjustiblity is possible. As for the modeling of these parts it been hard as I have to model it all by eye in the small amount of reference I have of such areas, but its been a blast cant wait to have to do this with my Star Citizen ship. Next time I go back to it ill be working on the last 2 beam carriers and then get all the weapons in place. There still alot of paneling and micro details that I can overlay over my blockout, it detailed enough where it just a matter of going back in and refining
Tail Wings 3 and 2 design, and blockouts of the beam carriers aswell as the large fuel tank
Holding out with my blueprints although at this point it all by eye
You might also find it easier to work with less geo as well and subdivide further when necessary. As an example here's the nose of mine:
I have this image of what my overall plan is for my Kamov, I am seeing as if you where playing battlefield and swapped the weapon in the menu that will then swap the model of the vehicle not just the texture that was in BF4. As this overall is just for practice and for fun going to take the full advantage of learning a wide field of HS as I can.
As for the fuel tank there one that just carries fuel tanks the small and large version (I still haven't made the pipe that im guessing pours in the fuel) it also has no flares on the wing container but uses anti-missile laser below. I seen it with many loadouts most of them are pretty quick to model while the main ones will take more time. Thanks for the names I will try goggling and see what I can get
As for another 4 day progress I managed to knockout all of the armaments, as-well as both the fuel tanks still need to do a minor detail pass but majority of it is done. Still working on the 9k338 IGLA-S as my reference aren't perfect and I need to spend extra time trying to analyze the mechanics. Next time I work on it again will wrap up the final armament and begin work on the body/cockpit area start making it look more like a helicopter (but as it is know the helicopter has it deadliness)
WIP knocking it out little by little the hardest of the armaments
6 deadly armaments attached to the tail wings, thus far it can shoot down anything
Take your nose piece for example. Lets say once you get the entire body of the craft made, it doesn't quite look right, or needs to be tweaked: In beks case, he moves maybe a couple points and the shape has drastically changed. Your version on the other hand would need a soft selection, FFD, uniform scale, etc etc to change the shape. Or move verts one by one...which would be madness.
It isn't a huge deal on simple shapes like that nose piece, but imagine the section where the wings connect to the body, or the shape where the engines are. Parts where topology gets significantly more complicated you'll see a huge difference in working with a manageable amount of geo.
"I typically don't like to work with such a low amount of poly's as I don't smooth mesh preview very often. So my non smooth version captures the full essence of the model I am modeling; this gives me enough edges to carve out any of the details I may need aswell"
Honestly, that's not good reasoning. You can always collapse subdivisions later if you need more geo to work with, *After* you've established primary and secondary forms.
"I don't smooth preview often"
.......sounds like a perfect reason to make the modeling process more difficult on yourself :poly124:
It does seem you've planned well though, and I hope to see this turn out awesome! Keep it up man. :thumbup:
I still keep it in manageable geometry and smooth preview just to check indents and pinching (this is my med poly it enough where i can work with little extra time to move verts but it pays off latter) i dont look at it as overall quality since my support loops are added at the end so some parts are blobby. I added extra geo to carve out the door hatch and windows without having to float it, i also wanted to carve in the turret and see how much space i have to work with as that will be one of the trickest spots to get right.
Ill see how it goes for now just didnt want to run into having to little and needing to add in. I live model on polycount hangout aswell so any problems i run into ppl can see. I do plan ahead and consiser every step thanks for noticing
Took me a little while to get my last armament modeled/placed due to only having a few reference to start then finding more (this is the 2 strelets version the helicopter I saw only supports 1 strelets. I underestimated the model and it turned out to be a full asset.
Strelets Launcher which is the mounting for Russian vehicles/helicopters/djigit hooked on is the 9k38 IGLA_S Surface to Air anti Air Rocket it the Russian version rocket for Battlefield AA US rocket which was cool halfway in noticing this will take a while but add a weapon to my portfolio if I so wanted it (also went beyond a blockout as I got carried away, but ending it with a high poly render tomorrow as a teaser)
Will be starting the body cockpit area finally, will be taking s6 advice and using the nose as a base and drawing out lower poly profile planes to work with less geo for proportions (all weapons are done, the turret is left)
The Ka-52 is a really cool helicopter !
To be noted I wont be getting the cockpit done by GDC trying get done as much as I can in terms of the High Poly maybe if I leave out the cockpit I can get close towards finishing and help me land a job/earn a opportunity to earn one. As for the mi-24 yeah Andre is already doing it and Reno doing the Apache so wanted to do another top attack helicopter to join the crowd (the mi-24 is also shares similar stuff to kamov)
Thank you, ill need to take a break sometime and look over my progress over the short year I began my modeling - hard surface carreer. Still have leaps of improvement, will be spending this year practicing texturing/complex hard surface to practice more design (to then be able to come up with my own stuff)
Progress, I began working on the next section which is where the cockpit sit and look out the window. I am being very accurate and even spent the time to model accurate looking windshield wipers aswell as the bottom wheel which is only 75% done as i'll need next section to complete the landing gear/have it functional
As a final letdown my blueprints are not lining up and I am now modeling it without the help of the blueprints, hopefully I can still use them to pull the blockout. Looks like the artist picked a early prototype version with a latest version on the top/front and also miss-drew the curves not following the actual shape. Along with general missmatch on all 3
Will be going back to my gun and wrapping it up to give myself a full week crunch on this to push as progress as I can before GDC
Wasn't able to finish it as I had to fix some blueprints errors the past 2 days towards the correct shape. Still need to connect the engine blocks towards the frame of the helicopter as-well as do the Rotor/inside cockpit which will all be pre-gdc at this point. Enjoy cya at GDC
Hey everyone back on the wagon modeling my helicopter as I continue to look for work, currently testing my luck at Dice and trying to get the helicopter done by end of month but not rushing it.
Started working on the exhaust frame and connected the tail-wings in place; the next couple of days I will be adding the gap for the rotor/exhaust pipe and connecting the back so there no gap. Cant wait
Just be sure to clean that stuff up :thumbup:
But yeah one of my drawbacks when I present is I don't like dealing with additional loops so its all added at the end
Will finalize the full frame by next post and begin working on the rotor
Thanks
KA-52 Rotor Collage
As of currently I am taking a small brake and relaxing my mind as I been modeling it for the past 45 days without doing much of anything else, thus I started a PKM. Just simple weapon as I wanted to practice more texturing especially wood/strong wear; I am on day 7 out of 10 I allocated for the High Poly will get back to the chopper after finishing the HP (I also wanted to gauge how fast I could make a weapon cutting the time spent on my AR15 a month to 3 weeks).
No luck finding a job (as its mostly senior positions) so trying to boost my portfolio with a another textured model as the Helicopter is going to take abit. I will be working on the PKM every now and then as it not a priority piece
Progress finished the fuselage and working on the rotor, I modeled any compartments that actually has a opening and will do the paneling and bolts on the low poly normal.
Marmoset Viewer Model Presentation
Wanted to post an update. In March ill be going back and doing a full detailed pass; sticking to what Reno Levi has done with his Apache.
@NAIMA No, I finished the main proportions for him and just needed to begin the rotor. I began working so it got put on hold as I develop my skills further.
Looking at it now, it at a good block out stage I can use this to begin the paneling/refine detailed. It will no longer be a game mesh (ill have more fun then limiting myself). I'll tackle it in small pieces and refine the details